ВІЧНА ЇНЬ СЮЕЯНЬ / ПЕРЕКЛАД З КИТАЙСЬКОЇ, ВСТУПНА СТАТТЯ ТА КОМЕНТАРІ Т. В. ВЕЧОРИНСЬКОЇ

Abstract

This publication offers a translation into Ukrainian of the well-known both in China and worldwide short story of Taiwanese American writer Pai Hsien-yung (白先勇) The Eternal Snow Beauty (永远的尹雪艳). The short story was first published in 1965 in Taiwanese Contemporary Literature (现代文学) journal. It was not until 1979 that it was published in the Contemporary (当代), Beijing monthly journal of current literature, and has aroused unusually great interest both among literary critics and the readership. The mystic and symbolic image of an eternally young beauty, who has moved from Shanghai to Taipei, where she was still the center of attention and had a great impact on the social life of how people interacted in Taipei, has opened a special lite-rary space for Chinese readers, a different one from mainland Chinese literature. Simultaneously with sympathy for the varieties of fortune of Yin’s house visitors, the author exposed the corrupt, flawed life of the once prominent men and women. Pai Hsien-yung skillfully in brilliant literary language described the entertainments, struggles, decadence, and death of those fascinated by the illusory beauty of Yin Xueyan. With the publication of this short story in mainland China, an active study and discussion of Overseas Chinese-language literature have started.
The Eternal Snow Beauty is viewed by us in the context of Chinese diaspora literature discourse. Pai Hsien-yung’s writings, as are typical for the writers of Chinese descent in the West, combine Eastern and Western aesthetics, reveal the influence of Western literature and artistic rethinking of Chinese classical literature, feature the search for the “Self” at the intersection of cultures. In his writings, Pai Hsien-yung often represents China and Taiwan from the point of view of the “Other”, who is closely engaged in events in the homeland, seeks to rethink its history, explain its present, and is very concerned about its future.
The translation of The Eternal Snow Beauty into Ukrainian is done for the first time.