Category：Literary Fiction & Historical Fiction

侠隐 Xia Yin (Hidden Man)

By ZHANG Beihai

●A historical fiction telling an epic story set in Beiping (an old name of Peking) in the early years of the Republic of China, about revenge and love, about the prosperity of a city and the destinies of the individuals living in it. Film adaption, Hidden Man, was directed by Jiang Wen.

During 1930s, in Beiping, the Japanese forces were eager to make a move, and the anti-Japanese activities had already started. A young swordsman named LI Tianran returned from the US. In order to revenge for the bloody murder of the entire family of his master five years ago, he dived into the Hutongs of this ancient capital and looked for the culprit who was responsible. With his investigation going deeper, Japanese spies, pro-Japanese advocates, wealthy old households, gangsters, social butterflies, foreign journalists…various people representing different interests surfaced and interacted in these complicated situations.
Though the life of ordinary people went on as usual, a storm was brewing deep at the heart of this country. Until the gunshot at the Lugou Bridge, everything took a turn and would never be the same… .

Author
ZHANG Beihai, born in Beijing in 1936, left for Taiwan with his family in 1949 and grew up in Taipei. He left for the US to study and work in Los Angeles, worked for the UN, and eventually settled in New York.
Before he turned 60, his writings were all about New York. His sensitive observation and humorous tone in his early work held great appeal for those Chinese who arrived in New York for the first time in the 1980s and 90s. Chen Danqing and other Chinese cultural celebrities including, writers A Cheng and Wang Anyi, and director Ang Lee often visited Zhang in his New York residence.
In the eyes of many of his readers, Zhang’s work also greatly reflects his personal temperament or charisma. After his retirement from the UN in the 1990s, Zhang turned to write a martial arts novel, Xia Yin (Hidden Man). With his mature and sophisticated style, he writes about Beijing local life in a vivid and deeply affectionate manner.