Author Description

Historical novels can be windows into other cultures and eras, but it's not always clear what's fact and what's fiction. Thousands have read Ba Jin's influential novel <i>Family</i>, but few realize how much he shaped his depiction of 1920s China to suit his story and his politics. In <i>Fact in Fiction</i>, Kristin Stapleton puts Ba Jin's bestseller into full historical context, both to illustrate how it successfully portrays human experiences during the 1920s and to reveal its historical distortions.<br> <br> Stapleton's attention to historical evidence and clear prose that directly addresses themes and characters from <i>Family</i> create a book that scholars, students, and general readers will enjoy. She focuses on Chengdu, China, Ba Jin's birthplace and the setting for <i>Family</i>, which was also a cultural and political center of western China. The city's richly preserved archives allow Stapleton to create an intimate portrait of a city that seemed far from the center of national politics of the day but clearly felt the forces of—and contributed to—the turbulent stream of Chinese history.