Sinking

Sinking (沉淪) 

Written by Yu Dafu (鬱達夫), one of the most influential voices of China's May‑Fourth literary revolution, this complete volume collects nine groundbreaking short stories first published in the early 1920s. Boldly confessional and psychologically raw, these works shattered old Chinese literary taboos by laying bare youth's sexual anguish, individual despair, and national humiliation against the backdrop of early‑twentieth‑century social upheaval.

The title story Sinking follows a lonely Chinese student studying in Japan, torn between romantic longing, crippling self‑loathing, and the pain of racial prejudice. Other major works include The Silver‑Gray Death, about a grieving widower adrift in Tokyo; Caishiji, which re‑imagines the tragic fate of Qing poet Huang Zhongze; Intoxicating Spring Nights, depicting tender cross‑class friendship between an unemployed intellectual and a factory girl; A Humble Sacrifice, a moving elegy for a Beijing rickshaw‑puller, alongside The Creeper's Journey, A Morning of Light Snow and the novella‑length The Lost Sheep.

Drawing on Japanese shishōsetsu confessional fiction, European romanticism and realist traditions, Yu Dafu's writing merges intimate personal agony with collective national sorrow. His narrators are flawed, unflinching, and self‑critical: they confess shame, desire and powerlessness without moral disguise. Long controversial in its era, this collection changed the course of modern Chinese literature.

Presented here in a full, unabridged new translation by Arthur Peng, it restores every nuance of Yu's lyrical, tormented prose. Western readers now gain full access to this landmark body of work, beyond the partial excerpts widely circulated before, to witness the inner chaos and human complexity of young Chinese minds a century ago.