![]() First English edition | |
Author | Eileen Chang |
---|---|
Original title | 色,戒 |
Translator | Julia Lovell |
Language | Chinese |
Publication date | 1979 |
Published in English | 2007 |
Lust, Caution (Chinese: 色,戒; pinyin: Sè, Jiè) is a novella by the Chinese writer Eileen Chang, first published in 1979. It is set in Shanghai and Hong Kong during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Reportedly, the short story "took Chang more than two decades to complete".[1] The 2007 film of the same name by renowned Taiwanese director Ang Lee was an adaptation of this novel. The story focuses on the plight of Wang Chia-chih and her involvement in a plot to assassinate Mr. Yee, who is a co-collaborator of a Chinese collaborator with the invading Japanese force. The novella was allegedly based on a true story of the wartime spy Zheng Pingru.[2] According to David Der-wei Wang, a professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University, Lust, Caution “drew controversy thanks to a biographical subtext: it seems to project Chang's own wartime experience as a collaborator's lover”.[3]
... Writing in the afterword to a recently republished version of the 54-page story, which took Chang more than two decades to complete, ...