How many decades does a man have to run to extricate himself from the consequences of a troubled past?
A guerrilla act many years ago still has repercussions for Yu Erlong and his family, colleagues and rivals. From the death of a comrade 30 years ago, to family life and political rivalries, Yu Erlong strives to be fair and just, even when others have less honourable intentions, motivated by personalities and acts separated by many decades.
The struggle of a grandfather and grandson to capture a prized red carp mirrors the battle of wits needed when encountering adversaries who reappear after many years. The memories of Luhua, the love he lost, the new life he makes for himself around Stone lake, his friends and his foes, are all beautifully choreographed in Spring in Winter.
Spring in Winter, originally published in Chinese in 1981 when it won the prestigious ‘Mao Dun Literature Prize’, was one of the first novels in China to use the ‘stream of consciousness technique’ more often seen in Western literature. Author Li Guowen interweaves his enchanting tale against the dramatic backdrop of decades of struggle and fighting that prevailed in China from 1937 until after the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.
Li Guowen was born in 1930 in Shanghai. He was a literary college member at drama school and saw active service in the Korean War, working as a literary editor. In 1957, he was accused of being a 'rightist' for writing the novel Re-Election. Former editor of the periodical Novel, he is now a professional writer and member of the Chinese Writers Association. In 1979, he wrote the novel The Eclipse, which marked his return to the literary world. A prolific writer, since then he has published the novels: Spring in Winter in 1981, which was one of the first batch of novels to win the prestigious Mao Dun Literature Prize awarded by the Chinese Writers Association back in 1982 when the awards were inaugurated; No. 5 Garden Street, which was developed into a widely acclaimed screenplay; and Memoir of a Dangerous House. He has also written several other short and medium-length novels, including The First Cup of Bitterness, Inadvertent Story, Elevator Murder, Nirvana and White World, and has won many awards. He is also the author of The Art of Swearing, Bitter Melon, In Search of Happiness, Gossip, The Beauty of Light, Crossroads and Non-Dream of the Red Chamber - the latter being an essay offering a critical analysis of the time-honoured Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber where Li interprets the protagonists and their lives in those times and puts them into a modern-day perspective for today's audience.
