The Last of China's Literati

The Music, Poetry, and Life of Tsar Teh-yun

By Bell Yung
200 pp., 14 illus., 6 x 9 in.
ISBN 978-962-209-916-6
HKD295.00 / USD39.50
Book information can now be found at HKUPress

In this biography of Tsar Teh-yun 蔡德允 (Cai Deyun), centenarian poet, calligrapher, and qin master, Bell Yung tells the story of a life steeped in the refined arts, and faithful to the traditional way of the Chinese literati. Set in Shanghai and Hong Kong, this book recounts the experiences of an individual who lived through war, displacement, exile, and unrequited longing for home and for a style of living now lost. Yet Mme Tsar sustained, as one of its last exemplars, much of that style of living despite being a woman in the largely male world of the refined arts. The author weaves a picture of an extraordinary but also tragic figure: extraordinary as daughter, wife, mother, and a celebrated musician, poet, and calligrapher; tragic as a member of the literati exiled from Shanghai to Hong Kong.

Known particularly for her accomplishments as a teacher and performer on the qin - instrument par excellence of the literati - the book delves deeply into her teaching method and musical style and is an important contribution to musicological study.

A prolific author on Chinese music and musicology, Bell Yung is professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh.

This text is quoted from the Hong Kong University Press 2008 catalogue. See also the University of Washington Press Fall 2008 catalogue.