The essays in this book, some of which were selected by the writerโs daughter, Shao Xiaohong, include long essays such as โOne Man Talkingโ and โA Year in Shanghaiโ as well as several shorter essays on subjects as diverse as the caricatures of Miguel Covarrubias, woodblock printing, and pictorial magazinesโโโall of which were published in Shaoโs own magazines. Although his essays may be less well known than those of other writers of the same period, without his unique and valuable contribution, the literary, artistic, and poetic worlds of twentieth-century Shanghai would have been very different indeed.ย
Paul Bevan is Departmental Lecturer in Modern Chinese Literature and Culture at the University of Oxford. From 2018โ2020, he worked as Christensen Fellow in Chinese Painting at the Ashmolean Museum. He is the author of A Modern Miscellany: Shanghai Cartoon Artists, Shao Xunmeiโs Circle and the Travels of Jack Chen, 1926โ1938 (2015) and โIntoxicating ShanghaiโโโโAn Urban Montage: Art and Literature in Pictorial Magazines during Shanghaiโs Jazz Age (2020).ย ย
Susan Daruvala works in modern Chinese literature and film. She is a Fellow of Trinity College, University of Cambridge, although now retired from her teaching post in the Department of East Asian Studies. She is the author of Zhou Zuoren and an Alternative Chinese Response to Modernity (2000).ย