Zhang Henshui

Zhang Henshui
Chinese: 张恨水
Statue and tomb of Zhang Henshui in Qianshan County, Anqing
Born
Zhang Xinyuan

(1895-05-18)May 18, 1895
Nanchang, Jiangxi province, Great Qing
DiedFebruary 15, 1967(1967-02-15) (aged 71)
Beijing, People's Republic of China
OccupationWriter

Zhang Henshui (Chinese: 张恨水; Wade–Giles: Chang Hen-shui; May 18, 1895 – February 15, 1967) was the pen name of Zhang Xinyuan (张心远), a popular and prolific Chinese novelist. He published more than 100 novels in his 50 years of fiction writing.

Early life

On May 18, 1895, Zhang was born in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, China. In his teens, Zhang went to school in Suzhou, China. At age 16, Zhang's father died. Zhang moved to Qianshan, Anhui, his ancestral home.

Career

Cover of Zhang Henshui's Shanchuang xiaopin (山窗小品; Essays from a Mountain Window), published in 1943. Though Zhang is primarily known for his novels, he has also published five essay collections throughout his career

Keen in both classical and vernacular (baihua) literatures since youth, Zhang began composing in the vein of zhanghui xiaoshuo (章回小说), novels written in vernacular Chinese but using classical Chinese poetry as chapter headings.

Zhang started his career as a member of a theatre troupe and then took up novel-writing as a hobby. In 1913, his wrote his first long-form novel Qing shan lei (青衫淚). Zhang joined the press in 1918 as an editor. Zhang became a journalist in Wuhan. In 1919, Zhang became a newspaper editor in Beijing, China.[1] The first of his major novels serialized was A Pining Song for the Southern Country (南国相思谱, Nanguo xiangsi pu, 1919). After departing for Beijing in 1919 to work as a newspaper editor, his breakthrough work, An Unofficial History of Beijing (春明外史, Chunming Waishi), was serialized between 1924 and 1928. It was a huge success and established him as the pre-eminent popular novelist of his generation. His masterpieces A Family of Distinction (金粉世家, Jinfen shijia, 1927–32) and Fate in Tears and Laughter (啼笑因缘, Tixiao Yinyuan, 1930) were much more perspicaciously planned than his earlier books. At the height of his popularity he concurrently worked on six novels on serialization, in between his career as a press-man and editor. Zhang was a major literary celebrity of his time, and aspects of his life were frequently covered and reported by the press and tabloids in China.[2]

The fourth of his most acclaimed works, Eighty-One Dreams (八十一梦, Bashiyi meng), was published in 1941. This work, perhaps the most representative of his 40-odd novels set during the Second Sino-Japanese War, uses parables and dream sequences to satirize the corrupt bureaucracy. Suffering a stroke in 1949, Zhang temporarily lost the ability to walk, but continued to write.

His last major novel Jizhe wai zhuan (記者外傳) was published between 1957-1958.

Zhang has written a total of three memoirs: one published in 1931 called Wo de xiaoshuo guocheng (我的小說過程; My Novel Writing Process); one published in 1949 called Xiezuo shengya huiyi (寫作生涯回憶; Memoirs of My Writing Career); he wrote his third such work, an autobiography called Wo de Shenghuo he Chuangzuo (我的生活和創作; My Life and Works) in 1963.

Works

It is estimated that throughout his life, Zhang Henshui wrote a total of some 40 million Chinese characters in over 110 novels. His works emphasize realistic dialogue, often interposing people from different social strata and were thus hugely popular amongst the Chinese public throughout the 20th century.[3]

Much of Zhang Henshui's works has yet to receive comprehensive translations in the West. Many of the most acclaimed and translated modern Chinese authors were May Fourth and progressive writers such as Lu Xun, Mao Dun, Lao She, Ba Jin, Cao Yu, Shen Congwen, Qian Zhongshu, Guo Moruo, Xiao Hong, Zhao Shuli, Yu Dafu, and Ding Ling; Zhang Henshui on the other hand, along with the likes of Jin Yong, Wang Dulu and Liang Yusheng, is regarded as a major mainstream literary titan of 20th century Chinese literature.[4][5]


Selected works of Zhang Henshui in chronological order:

Translated works

  • Fate in Tears and Laughter, trans. by Sally Borthwick, 1982.[6]
  • Shanghai Express: A thirties novel, trans. by William A. Lyell (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997).
  • Eighty-One Dreams, trans. by Simon Schuchat (The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2025).

Personal life

On February 15, 1967, Zhang died of a brain hemorrhage as he was getting out of bed in Beijing, China.[1][7]

Media adaptations

Many television series are based on works by Zhang. A Family of Distinction has been adapted a few times, once during the 1980s, when Hong Kong television broadcaster Television Broadcasts Limited produced the series Yesterday’s Glitter,[8] and during the 2000s, with the Mainland China television series The Story of a Noble Family.[9]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Zhang Henshui". silkgauzeaudio.com. Archived from the original on January 12, 2021. Retrieved January 10, 2021.
  2. ↑ Chow, Eileen Cheng-Yin (2017). "The Author As Celebrity". In David Der-wei Wang (ed.). A New Literary History of Modern China. Harvard University Press. pp. 354–359. ISBN 9780674967915.
  3. ↑ McClellan, T. M. “Change and Continuity in the Fiction of Zhang Henshui (1895-1967): From Oneiric Romanticism to Nightmare Realism.” Modern Chinese Literature, vol. 10, no. 1/2, 1998, pp. 113–33. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41490775. Accessed 19 Feb. 2026.
  4. ↑ Fan, Boqun (2020). A History of Modern Chinese Popular Literature. Cambridge University Press. pp. 580–595. ISBN 9781107068568.
  5. ↑ "The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press - Eighty-One Dreams". The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press. (Author Info.) Zhang Henshui 張恨水, pen name of Zhang Xinyuan 張心遠 (1895–1967), was probably China's most popular novelist during his lifetime.
  6. ↑ Chang, Henshui (Spring–Autumn 1982). "Fate in Tears of Laughter" (PDF). Renditions. Vol. 17–18. Translated by Sally Borthwick. pp. 255–287 – via Chinese University of Hong Kong. - See profile page
  7. ↑ "Henshui Zhang (1895-1967)". bnf.fr (in French). Retrieved January 10, 2021.
  8. ↑ "《京华春梦》主演何在？ 四花旦如梦人生" [Where are the lead actors for Yesterday’s Glitter? The dream-like life of the four female leads]. Southern Metropolis Daily (Via Sina.com) (in Simplified Chinese). 29 April 2015. Retrieved 26 August 2020.
  9. ↑ "year later, Disney finds their leading lady for live-action Mulan". The New Indian Express. 29 November 2017. Retrieved 26 August 2020. Her first television appearance was in The Story of a Noble Family (2003), based on Zhang Henshui's novel of the same name.

Additional sources

  • Zhang Henshui and Popular Chinese Fiction, 1919-1949 by Thomas Michael McClellan (Edwin Mellen Press, 2005)

External sources

  • Shanghai Express (one of the few novels of Zhang Henshui that received English-language translation)
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