Thunder from Heaven

Thunder from Heaven tells, thinly disguised, the story of Shen Pengtai, a scholar from Changshu who sent a memorial attacking the Empress Dowager's ministers and was punished for it. It is a fierce political novel of the reform era. It shows the reform era's politics from the inside. This is a complete new English translation, with names in modern pinyin and the text rendered as plain, readable English prose. Written as the empire was collapsing, it shows China meeting steamships, newspapers, foreign concessions and reform, and it is sharper and funnier than most readers expect. Very little of this extraordinary body of fiction has been translated, and it shows a China in rapid, painful and often absurd transformation. It is an ideal book for curious readers who want to explore Chinese literature and thought beyond the few famous titles, in a clear modern English version.