New Book: Fantasy in the Grotto: Otherworldly Adventures in Classical Chinese Literature

Prof Timothy Wai-keung Chan, Head of the Department of Chinese Language Studies, has written a new book on Chinese literature: Fantasy in the Grotto: Otherworldly Adventures in Classical Chinese Literature. In this work, he explores how a fourth-century tale about two farmers who get lost in a pleasure grotto and unwittingly sever their fragile ties with the mortal world eventually evolved into a complex literary tradition. The narrative instability of the tale was part of its snowballing appeal. Early in the tale’s journey through literary history, the girls met by the farmers morphed into female entertainers, Daoist priestesses, and immortals. This malleability offered a wealth of artistic possibilities. The feature of ‘time dilation’ and its associated dangers was also to become a flexible literary instrument and a defining feature of grotto fantasy literature.

 

 

 

 

Prof Timothy Wai-keung Chan’s new book on classical Chinese literature