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Banned Chinese novel gets a second chance
Singapore, Aug 26: The London-based author of a banned novel about decadence in 1930s China has rewritten it with a new title and hopes it will become a movie.
Singapore, Aug 26: The London-based author of a banned novel about decadence in 1930s China has rewritten it with a new title and hopes it will become a movie.
China last year imposed the ban on K: The Art of Love, a Chinese-language novel based on the real-life sexual exploits of English writer Virginia Woolf's nephew Julian Bell. It has been reworked and will be published soon in China as The English Lover, said its author Hong Ying.
The new version retains most of the original plot but has been scrubbed of numerous details, such as names, dates and places, the 40-year-old writer said at the sidelines of a literary conference in Singapore Friday.
The ban in China was the result of a lawsuit by Chen Xiaoying, 67, who said the original book's main female character was based on her mother, a well-known poet named Ling Shuhua who died in 1990. A Chinese court agreed with Chen and ordered Hong Ying to apologize publicly and pay Chen US$12,000.
The English Lover will be published in China by the end of 2003 or early 2004 and discussions are underway for a film version of the book, Hong Ying said.
"I never meant to hurt anyone and had no vendetta against Chen's mother," Hong Ying said. She said the novel was based on Bell's letters and journals mainly and had been inspired by Bell's "womanizing," which she found interesting.
English translations of the book, already in print in Britain and elsewhere, will not be changed, said Hong Ying, whose full name is Chen Hongying.
Born in the central city of Chongqing, the author has lived in Britain since 1991 and has published 13 books - among them the novel Summer of Betrayal, about China's 1989 pro-democracy movement - and a memoir, Daughter of the River. Bureau Report
The new version retains most of the original plot but has been scrubbed of numerous details, such as names, dates and places, the 40-year-old writer said at the sidelines of a literary conference in Singapore Friday.
The ban in China was the result of a lawsuit by Chen Xiaoying, 67, who said the original book's main female character was based on her mother, a well-known poet named Ling Shuhua who died in 1990. A Chinese court agreed with Chen and ordered Hong Ying to apologize publicly and pay Chen US$12,000.
The English Lover will be published in China by the end of 2003 or early 2004 and discussions are underway for a film version of the book, Hong Ying said.
"I never meant to hurt anyone and had no vendetta against Chen's mother," Hong Ying said. She said the novel was based on Bell's letters and journals mainly and had been inspired by Bell's "womanizing," which she found interesting.
English translations of the book, already in print in Britain and elsewhere, will not be changed, said Hong Ying, whose full name is Chen Hongying.
Born in the central city of Chongqing, the author has lived in Britain since 1991 and has published 13 books - among them the novel Summer of Betrayal, about China's 1989 pro-democracy movement - and a memoir, Daughter of the River. Bureau Report