This book collects twenty-four essays written by the author between 1922 and 1932. They capture his hopeful feelings as he returned from Japan, as well as his profound dismay upon seeing his ravaged homeland. His writing reflects both a sorrowful pessimism about the revolution’s future and fervent, impassioned calls for revolutionary change. Like his fiction, his essays carry a subtle sadness between the lines, evoking a desolation that can feel almost suffocating. A writer’s style is closely tied to their life and fate, and to the character and sensibilities shaped by them. Yu Dafu was a sorrowful writer, deeply concerned for his country and its people yet powerless to help, and this lent his works their melancholy tone.
