A masterpiece by one of China's bestselling contemporary novelists, Nanjing 1937" "tells the epic story of a passionate courtship played out against the backdrop of one of the century's most harrowing scenes of war. Ding Wenyu is a philandering professor famous for storming out of class if there aren't enough pretty girls to teach. When he attends the wedding of the beautiful Ren Yuyuan, he falls hopelessly in love with her. Embarking with single-minded resolve to win her heart, he writes daily love letters and makes unabashed overtures to no avail, all the while blissfully unaware of the mounting threat of the Japanese, whose siege of the historic capital city will result in the rape of thousands and murder on an unimaginable scale. A love story devastatingly linked to a nation's inexorable fate, this swirling tempest of a novel moves us from antic heights to tragic depths while vividly evoking a prosperous China on the brink of political upheaval. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Enormously popular in China, this winning, witty English-language debut by Ye (author of more than 30 books in his native country) traces the unlikely romance between a womanizing professor and the much younger wife of a fighter pilot on the eve of the catastrophic Japanese invasion of Nanjing. Ding Wenyu has been known to storm out of class if there aren't enough pretty girls to teach. He's legendary among his students for his brothel slang and clowning. Outside the classroom, the intemperate Ding bemoans his disintegrating marriage while recklessly seducing countless other women. He's perpetually drunk and despondent until, at the wedding of one of his colleague's daughters, he falls madly in love-with the bride. Ding discomfits the young Ren Yuyuan with his lovestruck stares. After the wedding, he sends Ren daily love letters and bides his time as her relationship with her solemn, philandering husband slowly unravels. Bitter and lonely, Ren finds Ding's attentions newly intriguing. Ding, for his part, feels his lifelong cynicism give way to genuine emotion. The pending war lends the romance a special urgency, and the lovers finally consummate their affair as the first Japanese soldiers storm into Nanjing. Ye paints a rich tableau of prewar Chinese politics and social mores. The contrast between the advance of the Japanese and Ding's slow seduction of Ren is both poignant and deliciously ironic. The only weakness is Berry's uneven, sometimes stiff translation ("At the wedding ceremony... the biggest embarrassment Ding Wenyu caused stemmed from the way he wantonly stared at the bride Yuyuan"). Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Best-selling Chinese author Zhaoyan Ye has fashioned an unlikely love story set against the grim and chaotic backdrop of the infamous Rape of Nanjing in 1937. When inveterate playboy and indifferent professor Ding Wenyu falls unexpectedly in love, the object of his affection is, unfortunately, the bride at the wedding he is attending. Although he ardently and imprudently pursues Ren Yuyuan, a woman 20 years his junior, she ignores his attentions until her husband, a fighter pilot in the Chinese air force, is reportedly killed in action. As the Japanese invasion progresses and Nanjing is threatened, Wenyu and Yuyuan embark upon a love affair destined to end in tragedy. Juxtaposed with the ominous advances of the Japanese army, this searing romance ironically links the destruction and turmoil of war with the bittersweet promise of newfound love. Zhaoyan Ye has managed to capture and communicate a broad spectrum of passionate emotions that transcend the cultural divide between East and West. MargaretFlanagan. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Since gaining fame in the mid-1980s "new wave," Ye Zhaoyan (b.1957) has outlasted two decades of Chinese cultural cynicism and boosterism by continually reinventing himself. First published in Chinese in 1996, Nanjing 1937 is a historical novel about a clownishly inept university professor's unrequited love of a young woman in Chiang Kai-shek's capital, Nanjing, just before the Japanese military "raped" it. What makes the antihero's timing worse is that he discovers his true love on the day she weds another. Nanjing 1937 is an interliterary feast, with significant motifs of the great wartime novelists Qian Zhongshu, Eileen Chang, and Ba Jin, plus Doctorow-like cameos of real 1930s Chinese celebrities. Berry (doctoral candidate, Columbia Univ.) renders the novel in a bright American idiom and provides expert glosses for all the historical figures in an index. Yet, despite Ye's own careful research on "the Nanjing era," its ethos comes out flat as a Beijing pancake. The fictional main characters are unconvincing, their very decadence inconsequential. The cameos seem like namedropping for mainland-Chinese-educated readers. Studiedly nonpartisan, unsentimental, and untragic, Nanjing 1937 is dispassionate to the point of bloodlessness. However, it is accessible, and its unusual and history-laden plot will interest many readers. Summing Up: Optional. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers. From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Foreword
Book I The Origins
1 An Ambiguous Pledge
2 Dismantling Yalta
3 Aligning With the West
Book II The Debate Begins
1 Russia First
2 Making the Case
3 ""We Need A Perspective""
4 The Partnership for Peace
Book III Across the Rubicon
1 An Ambiguous Decision
2 Shifting Gears
3 Pressure From the Right
4 Holbrooke's Return
5 Across the Rubicon
Book IV Establishing the Dual Track
1 Establishing the NATO Track
2 A Parallel Track With Moscow
3 The May-for-May Deal
4 The Po

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