A Lover from Northern China

The Lover from Northern China

* "I knew you, I'll always remember you. It never ended. Never forgotten."
* "This is a book. This is a movie."
* The panoramic version of "The Lover," the autobiographical story spanning Duras's life.
Duras said: "I wrote the story of the Chinese Lover in Northern China and the girl: In 'The Lover,' this story wasn't included yet, there wasn't enough time. When I wrote this book, I felt the ecstasy of writing. For a year, I was immersed in this novel, completely absorbed in the love between the Chinese man and the girl... For a whole year, I went back to the time I crossed the Mekong River by ferry. This time, in the process of narration, Qing's face suddenly appeared with dazzling brilliance—and the little brother, that extraordinary child. I stayed in the story with these people, only with them. I became a novelist again."
"The North China Lover" was written after the renowned French writer Marguerite Duras learned of her Chinese lover's death in her later years. It is a re-writing of Duras's most acclaimed and influential novel, "The Lover," offering a more detailed description of the story's beginning and end. It is a detailed record of "a love story, a dazzling love," providing more details about the local customs and human relationships along the Mekong River, family dynamics, the girl's departure, and their intersection many years later.
【Editor's Recommendation】:
Duras Series Portable Pocket Edition
Atmospheric Aesthetics, French Literary Flair
1. Marguerite Duras is an internationally renowned modern French writer with a wide readership. Starting with self-writing, she created a large number of novels, essays, plays, and films. She is a classic writer who entered the public eye and an influential film artist worldwide. France's "Bibliothèque de la Pléiade" published her complete works, marking her entry into the "literary Pantheon" as an immortal representative. Her plays are part of the classic repertoire of the Comédie-Française, and her novels are included in the French secondary school curriculum. Duras, with her unique artistic style and refreshing narrative approach, established a milestone in modern narrative art, as the famous French writer Alain Robbe-Grillet said: "Marguerite Duras harbors a subversive power in her narrative."
2. Duras's novels "The Lover" (published in 1984) and "The North China Lover" (published in 1991) represent the pinnacle of Duras's autobiographical writing. As a highly charismatic French female writer of the 20th century, Duras spent the first eighteen years of her life in French Indochina. The hot, chaotic colonial environment and her changing, difficult family circumstances influenced Duras throughout her life, leaving deep imprints on her works. "The Lover" is Duras's most famous work, where the enduring, prejudiced mother, the dissolute and arrogant elder brother, the gentle and melancholic younger brother, and the elegant and mysterious Chinese lover form the emotional relationships that haunted Duras throughout her life. "The North China Lover" was written after Duras learned of her Chinese lover's death in her later years. Compared to "The Lover," it is a more detailed narration, a more delicate description, and a more lingering confession of that past.
3. The entire novel "The North China Lover" is a palace built with moist memories—the slender, slightly rebellious, elusive French girl wearing a rosewood-colored flat-brimmed man's hat, the fair, slender, tall, shy Chinese man, nights fragrant with jasmine, the dim glow of the hurricane lamp at the end of the street, the Saigon rainy season, rice fields under heavy rain, the ferry's whistle on the Mekong River, the dark shadow of a black car, the blinds of a single suite... Every frame is like a declaration of love and desire, leading readers to feel the love and pain that forever remained in Duras's life through her memories.
4. To shoot the film "The Lover," French director Jean-Jacques Annaud invited Duras to co-write the screenplay. It was during the process of creating the film script that Duras had the idea of expanding and elaborating on the story, eventually publishing the novel "The North China Lover" in 1991. In 1992, the film "The Lover," directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring British actress Jane March and Chinese actor Tony Leung Ka-fai, was released to great acclaim and has since become a classic in world cinema. "The North China Lover" can be said to be Duras's other, more complete and personal version written for the film. To understand Duras's teenage life, her complex, even somewhat twisted family relationships, and to feel her poetic yet painful and loss-filled emotions for that unforgettable first love, reading the novel "The North China Lover" is highly recommended. This novel version has more cinematic language, and includes the opening shots and voice-overs that Duras specifically wrote for the film.

2026-04-30

上海译文出版社

328

9787580702180