Shanghai is a city of transformations and revolutions. Between the leafy corners of the French Concession, the lit eaves of the Old City and Yu Garden, the alleys and residential blocks of shikumen (stone gates), the futuristic Pudong district against the Huangpu Riveœr and the colonial architecture of the historical Bund, there is a singular glow about Shanghai: Its prismatic mélange of histories and cultures bristles and brims with human life.

上海是一座转型与革命的城市。法租界绿树成荫的街角、老城厢和豫园张灯结彩的屋檐、石库门的小巷和民居、黄浦江畔充满未来主义气息的浦东地区，以及历史悠久的外滩殖民建筑之间，上海散发着独特的光芒：历史与文化在这里交融，焕发出勃勃生机。

After the first Opium War in 1842, Shanghai became one of five port cities in China to open up foreign concessions and British, American, French and Japanese enclaves. The international hub birthed a particular Chinese modernity: By the 1920s and ’30s, Shanghai was dizzyingly cosmopolitan — China’s answer to Jazz Age Paris and New York. Popular performers like the Seven Great Singing Stars emerged, as did film stars such as Ruan Lingyu and Jin Yan, and glamorous writers like Eileen Chang.

1842年第一次鸦片战争后，上海成为中国五个开放外国租界、允许英、美、法、日建立飞地的港口城市之一。这个国际中心孕育了一种特殊的中国现代性：到20世纪二三十年代，上海成为一座令人眼花缭乱的国际化大都市——堪称中国的爵士时代巴黎和纽约，涌现出“七大歌后”这样受欢迎的艺人、阮玲玉和金焰这样的电影明星，以及张爱玲这样迷人的作家。

It’s easy to get caught up in the heady feeling of being immersed in that Shanghai, where my mother was born. In the decades since she left in 1966, the city has transformed dramatically, but the smells and views of the ultramodern megalopolis it is today continue to fire my senses and feed my imagination. To read the literature of Shanghai is to be caught in this city’s past and future: all its ever-expanding mystery, intrigue, excess and abundance.

很容易沉醉在上海那种迷人的氛围之中。我母亲出生在那里，在她1966年离开后的几十年来，这座城市发生了巨大的变化。但时至今日，这座超现代大都市的气息和景色仍在不断刺激我的感官，丰富我的想象力。阅读上海的文学作品，你会陷入这座城市的过去和未来：所有那些不断膨胀的神秘、阴谋、放纵与丰盛。

What books should I bring with me?

我应该带些什么书？

A slim volume of poetry is always a welcome companion when packing lightly. “A Summer Day in the Company of Ghosts,” by Wang Yin, a Shanghainese poet, covers decades of his oeuvre. Wang is among several poets to emerge in the aftermath of the Misty Poets movement that flourished after Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in 1978. “There Is Still Singing in the Afterlife,” a 2020 chapbook by JinJin Xu, a poet and visual artist who lives in Shanghai, features elegiac passages about family, inheritance and history, many set in her native city.

需要轻装上阵的时候，一本薄薄诗集的陪伴总是受欢迎的。上海诗人王寅的《和幽灵在一起的夏日》(A Summer Day in the Company of Ghosts)涵盖了他几十年的创作——王寅是1978年邓小平经济改革后兴起的朦胧诗运动的诗人之一。现居上海的诗人、视觉艺术家徐今今于2020年出版的《来世仍有歌声》(There Is Still Singing in the Afterlife)一书中，有许多关于家庭、遗产和历史的挽歌，其中很多都发生在她的家乡。

Aube Rey Lescure’s debut novel, “River East, River West,” braids together twin narratives about a teenager attending an international school in Shanghai and her landlord-turned-stepfather. “Years of Red Dust,” a short story collection by the writer Qiu Xiaolong, chronicles the lives of ordinary residents in a traditional Shanghai longtang neighborhood undergoing significant change from 1949 to the early 2000s. Similar in scope, the 1995 novel “The Song of Everlasting Sorrow,” by Wang Anyi, titled after Bai Juyi’s tragic Tang Dynasty poem, is a panoramic portrait of one woman’s life through four decades in Shanghai, beginning with her childhood in a longtang. Traveling back a century, “The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai” is a novel by Han Bangqing published in 1892, and later translated into English by Eileen Chang (and any book by Chang is also a fantastic choice to bring on your trip).

奥布·雷伊·莱斯库尔的处女作《河东，河西》（River East, River West）讲述了一个在上海上国际学校的少女和她的房东继父的故事。作家裘小龙的短篇小说集《红尘岁月》记录了从1949年到21世纪初，发生重大变化的上海传统弄堂里普通居民的生活。1995年，王安忆的小说《长恨歌》以白居易的唐代悲剧长诗命名，从一个女人在弄堂的童年开始，全景式地描绘了她在上海40年的生活。《海上花列传》是韩邦庆的小说，出版于1892年，被张爱玲译成英文（张爱玲的任何一本书都是旅途中的绝好选择）。

What literary destination would you recommend?

你会推荐什么文学景点？

A visit to Changde Apartment, Chang’s old residence, is a must. It is an Art Deco-style building built in 1936, three years before the writer moved there with her mother and aunt. Chang left to study in Hong Kong but returned in 1942 to the apartment, where she wrote many of her best works.

张爱玲的故居常德公寓是必去之地。这是一栋装饰艺术风格的建筑，建于1936年，三年后，这位作家与母亲和姑姑搬到那里。张爱玲曾去香港留学，于1942年回到这里，在这里写出了许多她最好的作品。

On the first floor, a courtyard opens to a bookstore and cafe dedicated to Chang’s career. Chang herself wrote an essay about living in these apartments — included in her collection “Written on Water” — in which she declares herself an apartment-dwelling city girl who cannot fall asleep without hearing the sound of trams.

一楼的一个庭院通往一家书店和咖啡馆，专门介绍张爱玲的写作生涯。张爱玲自己也写过一篇关于在这座公寓里生活的文章——收录在她的文集《流言》中——她说自己是一个住在公寓里的城市女孩，听不到有轨电车的声音就睡不着。

Of course, Chang’s bread and butter were her short stories and novels. Her writing — lyrical and dreamlike, but cinematically detailed — often epitomized the frenetic lives of modern women in Shanghai. Read her epic spy thriller novella “Lust, Caution,” about a group of theater students who moonlight as informants during wartime Shanghai, before watching Ang Lee’s 2007 film adaptation starring Tony Leung and Tang Wei. Her story collection “Love in a Fallen City” features her greatest hits, including “The Golden Cangue,” a family drama set in an old Shanghai household, and the delightful “Aloeswood Incense: The First Brazier,” which follows a Shanghai girl who stays with her mysterious aunt in Hong Kong. Or try her novel “Little Reunions,” a dark romance that follows a woman’s tumultuous upbringing in Shanghai and her eventual affair with a war traitor.

当然，张爱玲的主要作品是短篇小说。她的作品抒情而梦幻，但又有电影般的细节，往往是上海现代女性躁动生活的缩影。她的史诗级间谍惊悚小说《色，戒》讲述一群戏剧专业的学生在战时的上海兼职做线人的故事，读完后可以再看李安2007年的电影改编，由梁朝伟和汤唯主演。她的短篇小说集《倾城之恋》收录了她最受欢迎的作品，包括以上海一个老式家庭为背景的家庭剧《金锁记》，以及扣人心弦的《沉香屑：第一炉香》，讲述了一个上海女孩和她神秘的姑姑在香港生活的故事。也可以试试她的长篇小说《小团圆》，这是一部黑色浪漫小说，讲述了一个女人在上海跌宕起伏的成长经历，以及她与一个卖国贼的恋情。

A worthy mention for further reading: “Magnolia,” a poetry collection by Nina Mingya Powles, details the New Zealand poet’s wanderings in Shanghai as a diasporic returnee, following in the footsteps of Chang (the poems, too, visit Chang’s apartment). Powles’s food memoir, “Tiny Moons,” also details a year of eating in Shanghai: Trust that this city will bring you delightful meals.

值得一提的是，妮娜·明雅·鲍尔斯的诗集《木兰》(Magnolia)细述了这位新西兰诗人作为海外游子追随张爱玲的足迹在上海漫游的经历（诗中也描述了对张爱玲公寓的造访）。鲍尔斯的美食回忆录《小月亮》(Tiny Moons)还事无巨细地描绘了在上海一年的饮食经历：相信这座城市会让你尝到美味佳肴。

What books can show me other facets of the city?

哪些书可以向我展示这座城市的其他方面？

Wei Hui’s novel “Shanghai Baby” epitomizes a late 1990s/early 2000s micro-trend in China when young urban women wrote racy novels about sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. One of my other favorite novels from this era is “Candy,” by Mian Mian, a Shanghai-based writer.

卫慧的小说《上海宝贝》是20世纪90年代末至21世纪初中国一股小潮流的缩影，当时一些年轻的城市女性在书写关于性、毒品和摇滚的艳情小说。关于这个时代，我最喜欢的另一部小说是上海作家棉棉的《糖》。

Jenny Zhang is a Shanghai-born, New York-raised poet and fiction writer whose story collection, “Sour Heart,” includes a blistering piece that volleys between 1966 Shanghai at the onset of the Cultural Revolution and 1996 America. The journalist and prominent Asian American activist Helen Zia’s book “Last Boat Out of Shanghai” details four stories about people who fled Shanghai after the 1949 revolution.

珍妮·张（音）是上海出生、纽约长大的诗人和小说家，她的小说集《酸涩的心》(Sour Heart)中有一篇快节奏的作品，在1966年文化大革命爆发时的上海和1996年的美国之间穿梭。记者、著名亚裔美国活动家谢汉兰的《离开上海的最后一艘船》（Last Boat Out of Shanghai）讲述了四则1949年革命后逃离上海的故事。

Tash Aw’s novel “Five Star Billionaire” follows a cast of Malaysian migrants as they settle in Shanghai. Kazuo Ishiguro’s “When We Were Orphans” is set in wartime Shanghai and told from the perspective of an Englishman who returns to this city where he was raised to investigate the case of his vanished parents. Juli Min’s “Shanghailanders” is a novel about a family set in the city’s future, beginning in 2040 and rewinding back to 2014.

欧大旭的小说《五星亿万富翁》(Five Star Billionaire)讲述了一群定居上海的马来西亚移民的故事。石黑一雄的《我辈孤雏》（When We Were Orphans）以战时的上海为背景，从一个英国人的角度讲述了这个故事，他回到这个他长大的城市，调查失踪的父母的案件。尤莉·闵（音）的《上海英侨》(Shanghailanders)是一部以未来城市为背景的家庭小说，故事从2040年开始，倒叙至2014年。

A recent debut novel, “Masquerade,” by Mike Fu, follows a queer man house-sitting for his artist friend in Shanghai who discovers a mysterious novel about a masked ball in the city in the 1930s. And in her upcoming debut novel, “Homeseeking,” which comes out in January, Karissa Chen chronicles a pair of childhood friends who grow up in Shanghai but move elsewhere, cycling through a turbulent six decades of Chinese history.

傅麦前不久出版的处女作《假面舞会》(Masquerade)讲述了一个在上海为艺术家朋友看家的酷儿男性发现了一本神秘小说，讲的是20世纪30年代上海一个假面舞会。在即将于明年1月出版的处女作《寻找家园》（Homeseeking）中，卡丽莎·陈（音）记录了一对朋友，两人在上海长大，从童年时代就结下了友谊，但后来搬到其他地方，经历了中国60年的动荡历史。

There is also no shortage of writers’ brief and intense encounters with the city. Langston Hughes dedicates a chapter of his memoir “I Wonder as I Wander” to his 1933 visit to Shanghai. And in this century, the poet Terrance Hayes has a wonderful essay in his collection “Watch Your Language” about his participation in the Shanghai International Poetry Festival in 2016.

作家与这座城市短暂而激烈的接触也带来了不少作品。兰斯顿·休斯在他的回忆录《我徘徊，我彷徨》（I Wonder as I Wander）中用了一章来描述他1933年的上海之行。而在本世纪，诗人特伦斯·海斯在他的文集《注意你的语言》（Watch Your Language）中有一篇精彩的文章，讲述了他参加2016年上海国际诗歌节的经历。

Who are some literary icons I might see named in public?

我可能会在公共场合看到哪些文学偶像的名字？

In the Hongkou district, a street full of lovely old houses is dubbed the Duolun Road Cultural Street. There stands a building where the League of Left-Wing Writers was founded. The group was established in 1930 by Shanghainese writers who sought to create unity with leftist politicians. It dissolved in 1936, but had an enduring impact: One of its co-founders, Lu Xun, was described by the author and Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe as “the greatest writer Asia produced in the 20th century.” A statue of Lu on Duolun Road shows him sitting at a table with two disciples. Farther north is Lu Xun Park, which has a museum dedicated to the writer, as well as his burial site. A translation of his collected fiction, “The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China,” was published by Penguin Classics in 2010.

在虹口区，有一条满是可爱老房子的街道，名叫多伦路文化街。中国左翼作家联盟就是在街边的一座建筑里成立的。该组织由上海作家于1930年成立，旨在团结左翼政治人士。它于1936年解散，但产生了持久的影响：它的创始人之一鲁迅被作家、诺贝尔文学奖得主大江健三郎形容为“20世纪亚洲最伟大的作家”。多伦路上有鲁迅和两个弟子坐在一张桌边的雕像。再往北是鲁迅公园，那里有鲁迅博物馆和鲁迅墓。他的小说集译本《阿Q正传》于2010年由企鹅经典出版社出版。

On Duolun Road, you will also come across a statue of a bob-haired woman named Ding Ling, sitting demurely on a bench. Ding was a member of the league along with her husband, the poet Hu Yepin. Her work focuses on the plight of unconventional young women in China; later works depict rural struggle. An English translation of her selected writings, “I Myself Am A Woman,” includes her story “Shanghai, Spring 1930.”

在多伦路上，你还会看到丁玲的半身雕像，她留着短短的波波头，端坐在长椅上。丁玲和她的丈夫诗人胡也频都是左联成员。她的作品关注不遵循传统的中国年轻女性的困境，后期作品描绘了农村地区的艰辛。英译作品选集《我自己是女人》(I Myself Am A Woman)收录了她的小说《1930年春上海》。

On the same block, you will encounter a statue of Mao Dun, who wrote the novel “Midnight,” a classic that takes place in Shanghai in the 1930s. The book is a scathing depiction of capitalist interests in Shanghai’s foreign settlements and the vast inequalities within the industrializing cosmopolitan city at the edge of war. China’s most prestigious literary prize is named after Dun.

在同一条街上，你会看到茅盾的雕像，他的小说《子夜》是一部发生在20世纪30年代上海的经典作品。小说尖锐地描写了上海外国人定居点的资本主义利益勾结，以及这座处于战争边缘的工业化国际大都市的巨大不平等。中国最负盛名的文学奖就是以茅盾的名字命名的。

What bookstores should I visit?

我应该逛什么书店？

Drop by Foreign Languages Bookstore for English-language books. The London Review Bookshop also has a sister bookstore in Shanghai, Sinan Books, with a wonderful selection of English-language titles. And a new haven dedicated entirely to poetry is the Sinan Books Poetry Store — a huge and stately bookstore located in St. Nicholas Church, a building that was renovated and reopened in 2019. Go not only to see the collections of poems enshrined there but also the rows and rows of books reaching for the buttressed sky.

到外文书店购买英文书籍。伦敦书评书店在上海也有一家姊妹书店思南书局，里面有很丰富的英文书籍。思南书局诗歌店则是一个专门为诗歌而设的新天地，这家庞大而庄严的书店位于圣尼古拉教堂内，建筑于2019年翻新并重新开放。那里不但安放着众多的诗歌作品，还有一排排仿佛直抵云霄的高耸书架。

Sally Wen Mao’s Shanghai Reading List

毛雯雯的上海书单

• “A Summer Day in the Company of Ghosts,” Wang Yin, translated by Andrea Lingenfelter

•《和幽灵在一起的夏日》，王寅著；安德烈娅·林根费尔特译

• “There Is Still Singing in the Afterlife,” JinJin Xu

•《来世仍有歌声》，徐今今著

• “River East, River West,” Aube Rey Lescure

•《河东，河西》，奥布·雷伊·莱斯库尔著

• “Years of Red Dust,” Qiu Xiaolong

•《红尘岁月》，裘小龙著

• “The Song of Everlasting Sorrow,” Wang Anyi, translated by Michael Berry and Susan Chan Egan

•《长恨歌》，王安忆著；白睿文(Michael Berry)和陈毓贤(Susan Chan Egan)译

• “The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai,” Han Bangqing, translated by Eileen Chang

•《海上花列传》，韩邦庆著；张爱玲译

• “Written on Water,” Eileen Chang, translated by Andrew F. Jones

•《流言》，张爱玲著；安道(Andrew F. Jones)译

• “Lust, Caution,” Eileen Chang, translated by Julia Lovell

•《色，戒》，张爱玲著；兰诗玲(Julia Lovell)译

• “Love in a Fallen City,” Eileen Chang, translated by Karen S. Kingsbury

•《倾城之恋》，张爱玲著；金凯筠(Karen S. Kingsbury)译

• “Little Reunions,” Eileen Chang, translated by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz

•《小团圆》，张爱玲著；潘简(Jane Weizhen Pan)和马丁·梅兹译

• “Magnolia” and “Tiny Moons,” Nina Mingya Powles

•《木兰》和《小月亮》，妮娜·明雅·鲍尔斯著

• “Shanghai Baby,” Wei Hui, translated by Bruce Humes

•《上海宝贝》，卫慧著，布鲁斯·休米斯译

• “Candy,” Mian Mian, translated by Andrea Lingenfelter

•《糖》，棉棉著，凌靜怡(Andrea Lingenfelter)译

• “Sour Heart,” Jenny Zhang

•《酸涩的心》，珍妮·张著

• “Last Boat Out of Shanghai,” Helen Zia

•《离开上海的最后一艘船》，谢汉兰著

• “Five Star Billionaire,” Tash Aw

•《五星亿万富翁》，欧大旭著

• “When We Were Orphans,” Kazuo Ishiguro

•《我辈孤雏》，石黑一雄著

• “Shanghailanders,” Juli Min

•《上海英侨》，尤莉·闵著

• “Masquerade,” Mike Fu

•《假面舞会》，傅麦著

• “Homeseeking,” Karissa Chen

•《寻找家园》，卡丽莎·陈著

• “I Wonder as I Wander,” Langston Hughes

•《我徘徊，我彷徨》，兰斯顿·休斯著

• “Watch Your Language,” Terrance Hayes

•《注意你的语言》，特伦斯·海斯著

• “The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun,” Lu Xun, translated by Julia Lovell

•《鲁迅小说全集》，鲁迅著，蓝诗玲译

• “I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling,” Ding Ling, edited by Tani E. Barlow with Gary J. Bjorge

•《我自己是女人》，丁玲著，塔尼·E·巴洛与加里·J·比约尔奇编辑

• “Midnight: A Romance of China, 1930,” Mao Dun, translated by Hsu Meng-Hsiung and A.C. Barnes

•《子夜》，茅盾著，许孟雄（音）和A·C·巴恩斯译