Six Records of a Floating Life

Marianne Bastid-Bruguière This is quite different – it’s a very short book. Shen Fu was a clerk who was born into a family of literati in 1763. What is interesting is that he tells a story of love, and of love between husband and wife, which is quite unusual in Chinese literature. He wrote a story of his life after his wife of 23 years had died, and it wasn’t published at the time but was discovered later and published in 1877. It had enormous success because it was a very candid description of happiness despite misfortunes, and of the enjoyment of all the aesthetic sides of life. He loved painting, travelling,... (Source)