Shanghai Baby
| Author | Wei Hui |
|---|---|
| Original title | 《上海宝贝》(Shànghǎi Bǎobèi) |
| Translator | Bruce Humes |
| Country | China |
| Language | Chinese, translated into English and other languages |
| Publisher | Robinson Publishing UK |
|
Publication date
|
2001 |
| Media type | Print paperback & Audio book |
| Pages | 256 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 51068741 |
| Followed by | Marrying Buddha |
Shanghai Baby is a semi-autobiographical novel written by Chinese author Wei Hui. It was originally published in China in 1999. The English translation was published in 2001.
The novel's narrator and main character, supposedly a semi-fictionalised version of the author, is a 25-year-old Shanghainese woman named Nikki, or Coco to her friends, a waitress in a Shanghai cafe. Coco is trying to write a first novel after previous success publishing a collection of sexually frank short stories. At the cafe, Coco meets a young man, Tian Tian, for whom she feels extreme tenderness and love. However, Tian Tian – an artist – is reclusive, impotent and an increasing frequent user of drugs. Despite parental objections, Coco moves in with him, leaves her job and throws herself into writing.
Shortly afterwards Coco meets Mark, a married German expatriate businessman living in Shanghai. The two are uncontrollably attracted to one another and begin a highly charged, physical affair. Torn between her two lovers, and tormented by her deceit, her unfinished novel and the conflicting feelings involved in love, lust and betrayal, Coco tries to understand who she is and what she wants from life.
Twenty-five-year-old Nikki - whose friends call her Coco after Coco Chanel – is a young Shanghainese writer, fascinated by the West and Western culture. A graduate of Fudan University, Coco has written a successful collection of short stories, The Shriek of the Butterfly, which, unusually for China, have sexually frank themes written from a woman's point of view. Coco now wants to embark upon her first novel, a semi-autobiographical work set in Shanghai.
The novel opens with Coco working as a waitress in a Shanghai cafe. Whilst at work, she meets a sensitive-looking young man, Tian Tian. Coco and Tian Tian start an intense relationship and Coco leaves her parents' home to move in with her new boyfriend. However, Tian Tian, a talented young artist, is extremely anxious and shy. His mother left him in the care of his grandmother when he was a small boy, after his father mysteriously died. Tian Tian now refuses to speak to his mother, who is living in Spain, although he lives off the money she sends him. Tian Tian's problems cause him to be completely impotent and unable to consummate his relationship with Coco.
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