Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Fortress Besieged

Fortress Besieged

Zhongshu, Qian
Kelly, Jeanne
Mao, Nathan K.

Paperback

General FictionLiterary Fiction

ISBN10: 0811238601
ISBN13: 9780811238601
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Published: Sep 15 2026
Pages: 560
Weight: 1.25
Height: 1.60 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.40
Language: English
Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese war, Fortress Besieged recounts the exuberant misadventures of its hapless hero Fang Hung-chien. After aimlessly studying in Europe at his family's expense, Fang returns to Shanghai armed with a bogus degree from a fake university. On the ocean liner back, Fang's life becomes deeply entangled with those of two Chinese beauties--Miss Su and Miss Pao. Qian writes, With Miss Pao it wasn't a matter of heart or soul. She hadn't any change of heart, since she didn't have a heart. When he does finally make it home, he obtains a teaching post at a newly established university, encounters effete pseudo-intellectuals, and falls into a disastrous marriage of Nabokovian heights of distress and absurdity. A glorious tale of calamity, disillusionment, love, war, and wedded unbliss, Fortress Besieged was acclaimed by C. T. Hsia as the most delightful and carefully wrought novel in modern Chinese literature.

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