| Wild Kids: Two Novels about Growing Up Revised Edition Contributor(s): Chang, Ta-Chun (Author), Berry, Michael (Translator) |
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ISBN: 0231120974 ISBN-13: 9780231120975 Publisher: Columbia University Press OUR PRICE: $27.72 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2002 Annotation: These two searingly funny and unsettling portraits of teenagers beyond the control and largely beneath the notice of adults in 1980s Taiwan are the first English translations of works by Taiwan's most famous and best-selling literary cult figure. Chang Ta-chun's intricate narrative and keen, ironic sense of humor poignantly and piercingly convey the disillusionment and cynicism of modern Taiwanese youth. Interweaving the events between the birth of the narrator's younger sister and her abortion at the age of nineteen, the first novel, "My Kid Sister," evokes the complex emotional impressions of youth and the often bizarre social dilemmas of adolescence. Combining discussions of fate, existentialism, sexual awakening, and everyday "absurdities" in a typically dysfunctional household, it documents the loss of innocence and the deconstruction of a family. In "Wild Child," fourteen-year-old Hou Shichun drops out of school, runs away from home, and descends into the Taiwanese underworld, where he encounters an oddball assortment of similarly lost adolescents in desperate circumstances. This novel will inevitably invite comparisons with the classic "The Catcher in the Rye," but unlike Holden Caulfield, Hou isn't given any second chances. With characteristic frankness and irony, Chang's teenagers bear witness to a new form of cultural and spiritual bankruptcy. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Asian - General - Fiction | Literary - Fiction | Coming Of Age |
| Dewey: FIC |
| LCCN: 99088264 |
| Series: Modern Chinese Literature from Taiwan |
| Physical Information: 0.6" H x 5.96" W x 7.7" (0.70 lbs) 272 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Asian - Topical - Adolescence/Coming of Age |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: These two searingly funny and unsettling portraits of teenagers beyond the control and largely beneath the notice of adults in 1980s Taiwan are the first English translations of works by Taiwan's most famous and best-selling literary cult figure. Chang Ta-chun's intricate narrative and keen, ironic sense of humor poignantly and piercingly convey the disillusionment and cynicism of modern Taiwanese youth. Interweaving the events between the birth of the narrator's younger sister and her abortion at the age of nineteen, the first novel, My Kid Sister, evokes the complex emotional impressions of youth and the often bizarre social dilemmas of adolescence. Combining discussions of fate, existentialism, sexual awakening, and everyday "absurdities" in a typically dysfunctional household, it documents the loss of innocence and the deconstruction of a family. In Wild Child, fourteen-year-old Hou Shichun drops out of school, runs away from home, and descends into the Taiwanese underworld, where he encounters an oddball assortment of similarly lost adolescents in desperate circumstances. This novel will inevitably invite comparisons with the classic The Catcher in the Rye, but unlike Holden Caulfield, Hou isn't given any second chances. With characteristic frankness and irony, Chang's teenagers bear witness to a new form of cultural and spiritual bankruptcy. |
Contributor Bio(s): Berry, Michael: - Michael Berry is professor of Chinese Literature at UCLA. He is the author of A History of Pain: Trauma in Modern Chinese Literature and Film (Columbia University Press, 2011) and Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (Columbia University Press, 2005). |