Ashes of Time

This book is Hong Zeng's fifth collection of short stories-a lyrical, poetic, and fantastical work. Nearly every story originated from the central images and ideas of the author's own poetry. Unlike her previous collections, these stories are set in ancient China and feature protagonists from the distant past, giving the volume an even stronger atmosphere of fantasy. Rooted in the tradition of classical Chinese legends, strange tales, and myths, they are nevertheless reimagined through a modern literary sensibility.

In "Ashes of Time," a scholar-painter and a woman living by the riverside encounter one another by chance from youth to old age, yet tragically fail to unite, as though they inhabit different dimensions of time-one dwelling in the past, the other forever anticipating the future. "Violet-toned Melody" tells the story of a frail young man who believes that the violets he planted remember him. After his death, the violet blossoms open a gateway through which the female protagonist enters a phantom realm of memory. "Lotus Spirit" recounts the sorrow of a lotus sprite dwelling beneath the water, once loved but ultimately forgotten. "Reed Flower Sea" narrates the mysterious meeting between a scholar and a reed-flower spirit who embodies and crystallizes his own past. "Jincheng Water Lanes" portrays the love between a young woman and a phantom-like scholar who exists simultaneously in the worlds of the living and the dead. "The Hut upon the Lake" unfolds in a tranquil lakeside setting that the female protagonist gradually realizes is an externalization of her own inner consciousness. "A Strange Tale of Returning Home" depicts a dreamlike world after death, where an entire hometown has sunk beneath the lake and the female protagonist, after dying, is transformed into the beautiful and ethereal "Lady of Amber."

Hong Zeng holds two PhDs in literature and taught as a tenure-track professor of literature at Carleton College and Hamline University for thirteen years. She is the author of five books and dozens of scholarly essays on literary criticism, as well as a bilingual volume of poetry in English and Chinese.