• Repertoires (Writing and Fiction)

Creators: André Lévy et René Goldman

| Contents/Chapters: At a time when literature in a language hitherto considered "vulgar" is finally taking its rightful place in Chinese literature, we felt it essential to reveal a collection of tales which, by virtue of its antiquity, is one of the earliest monuments of this siao-chouo literature. Today, this word refers to novels. At the time, it was mainly used to refer to fairy tales, from which the Chinese novel would evolve. As A. Lévy, "the surprising fact is the charm that these tales exert on us despite the distance in time and space". Less surprising is the 13th-century text he cites, a manual for the perfect storyteller: "When you speak of the baseness and treachery of traitors to the country, fill the good people with anger, speak of the injustices and avanities suffered by loyal servants to make a heart of stone weep! Tell ghost stories to make a Taoist priest shudder! Speak of feminine intrigues to make ladies pale and blush with worry! [...] Don't linger in your explanations, don't be prolix." The seven tales collected here, from the 12th to the 14th century, illustrate these precepts, which is why, since their discovery at the turn of the century and publication in 1920, they have been a scandalous and best-selling success in China. In the Shanghai concession, the French censors took it upon themselves to condemn these writings, which are supposedly pornographic, but are only human enough to fascinate a twentieth-century European reader. | Material: 182 p. ; no illustrations ; 19 cm

Call number : 95. Contes et Fables (95. lev)