Pai Hsieh-yung

Pai Hsien-Yung is an internationally acclaimed author and the founder of Modern Literature magazine. He is generally considered among the greatest living stylists of Chinese fiction and prose. His publications include the collections of short stories Lonely Seventeen, Taipei People, and The New Yorker; the collection of prose writing Suddenly the Past; and the novel Crystal Boys. Pai became a professor of Chinese literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1965, and retired in 1994. In recent years he has devoted his energy to the promotion of Chinese Kun opera to the world. He is the general producer and artistic director of the opera Peony Pavilion, which has toured China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the U.S.

Forthcoming publications:

TAIPEI PEOPLE will be re-issued by Vintage (UK) and McNally Jackson (US) in 2026 and 2027 respectively. 

A masterwork of modern Chinese literature, it is a collection of dark, wistful stories following the lives and losses of those who fled to Taipei after the 1949 Communist takeover of mainland China.

Welcome to Taipei, Taiwan. The Chinese Civil War is now long over, but its shadow still haunts the city’s lost souls.

On the eve of her retirement, a dancer recalls the gentle boy she met in her youth. She loved him then – and never saw him again.

Out at a deserted shoreline, a young man identifies the body of a manservant. He was a soldier once; he is nothing now.

As night sets in, a group of men gather around a lotus pond in the park. There, they tell tales of a time that can never be returned to and search for connection in the darkness.