Focusing on the responses of writers in Shanghai to the Japanese occupation, this book corrects the postwar conception of occupied China as a field of conflict between selfless resisters and shameless collaborators by showing a complexity and ambiguity of moral choices that defies such stereotyping.
“Poshek Fu’s fine study of the experiences of Chinese writers in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, the first of its kind, is an important and welcome contribution. . . . It is meticulously researched and convincingly argued. His discussion of the economic, political, social, and ethical quandaries of life in wartime is masterful, and he evokes vividly the minefield of private and public morality through which intellectuals somehow had to pick their way.”—China Review International
“The story of occupied China remains largely untold, particularly in Western scholarly literature. . . . Poshek Fu’s study is a major step forward in our understanding of this complex era.”—Pacific Affairs