ABSTRACT
When Auerbach was analyzing Virginia Woolf’s 1927 novel To the Lighthouse in his admired Mimesis, he certainly had no idea that there was a writer in China whose 1932 novel Bridge (Qiao) was being compared to Woolf’s. The person who made this connection was Zhu Guangqian, a well-known literary critic in 1930s and 1940s China, and the writer was Fei Ming. In Zhu’s words, Fei Ming’s Bridge “leaves out all the superficial stuff and shallow logic, and goes directly to the depths of the heart, quite similar to Marcel Proust and Virginia Woolf, although these modern novelists are yet to be familiar to Mr. Fei Ming.” 1 Often neglected and little understood, Fei Ming is very unique in the history of modern Chinese literature. By stubbornly being himself, taking the path that was distinctively his, Fei Ming nevertheless exhibits in his writing and experimentation a strong affinity with Virginia Woolf, Marcel Proust and other modernist writers.
