The Foundations of Chinese Society

Presentation

Fei Xiaotong (1910-2005), who studied in China and the United Kingdom before the Second World War, offers a comparative analysis of Chinese society organized around three themes: urban and rural, past and present, the West and China. At the heart of this undertaking, the quest for “roots” leads into a characterization of Chinese society based on “the differential mode of association”. This systematized description of Chinese structures, thinking and practices, written with the initial aim of both rehabilitating and delineating them in the eyes of urban, educated readers, helped lay the foundations for reflection on China’s pathways into modernity. This text made Fei Xiaotong one of the most prominent names in Chinese social sciences. Many passages remain remarkably relevant despite the time elapsed since its initial publication in 1948.

This first translation into French offers readers throughout the French-speaking world a clear, accurate, concise and brilliant text, that presents the uniqueness of Chinese society from the inside. Its depth and acuity make it essential reading for anyone with an interest in China, past or present.

Translators

Yann Varc’h Thorel holds a degree in Chinese and a master’s degree in literary translation from Inalco. He has notably translated works by Lu Xun, Wen Yiduo, Gu Cheng and Gao Xingjian. He is also dedicated to the transmission of the Breton language and the publication and creation of Breton-language literature, and furthermore teaches the language using an immersion method.

Huang Hong is a professor of French literature at Nanjing University, and a “Yunshan Scholar” researcher at the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. She is a specialist in French literature, the translator of around forty literary works (Saint-Exupéry, Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Marguerite Duras, Patrick Modiano, Michel Tournier, Françoise Sagan, Philippe Forest, Ismail Kadaré, Yasmina Khadra, and others), an essayist and the author of works such as La Petite musique de Marguerite Duras, Une vie littéraire (The Resonating Voice of Marguerite Duras, A literary life).

144 pages
16 x 24
Publication: 01/07/2021
ISBN: 9782858313884