Fortress Besieged

4 August 2026

Territory Rights — Worldwide including Canada, but excluding the British Commonwealth.

Qian Zhongshu (Author), Jeanne Kelly (Translator), Nathan K. Mao (Translator), John Gall (Cover design or artwork by)

With a Foreword by Jonathan D. Spence, With an Introduction by Yiyun Li

Description

The greatest Chinese novel of the twentieth century, Fortress Besieged is a classic of world literature and a masterpiece of parodic fiction

Set on the eve of the Sino-Japanese war, Fortress Besieged recounts the exuberant misadventures of its hapless hero Fang Hung-chien. After aimlessly studying in Europe at his family’s expense, Fang returns to Shanghai armed with a bogus degree from a fake university. On the ocean liner back, Fang’s life becomes deeply entangled with those of two Chinese beauties—Miss Su and Miss Pao. Qian writes, “With Miss Pao it wasn’t a matter of heart or soul. She hadn’t any change of heart, since she didn’t have a heart.” When he does finally make it home, he obtains a teaching post at a newly established university, encounters effete pseudo-intellectuals, and falls into a disastrous marriage of Nabokovian heights of distress and absurdity. A glorious tale of calamity, disillusionment, love, war, and wedded unbliss, Fortress Besieged was acclaimed by C. T. Hsia as “the most delightful and carefully wrought novel in modern Chinese literature.”

Reviews

"That the novel existed at all seemed a miracle. It’s like War and Peace without the war." — Yiyun Li, from the Introduction

"Insightful and entertaining." — Jonathan Spence, The New York Review of Books

"Ribald and sardonic, Fortress Besieged has something for everyone. It’s funny, poignant, and ruthlessly observant. Qian’s descriptions are wickedly precise." — Julia Lovell, The Guardian

"A polymath who became a symbol of worldly sophistication, Qian had spent his life breaking into fortresses, the kinds of venerable institutions that promise security and honor in a time of rapid social transformation. And so it is all the more poignant that at the end of his masterpiece—the only novel he ever completed—he reveals these structures to be fig leaves, flimsy illusions concealing the loneliness of our modern existence." — Andrew Chan, 4Columns

Also By: Jonathan D. Spence

The Search for Modern China
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The gold standard for the modern Chinese history course, for a new generation
God's Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan
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The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds
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"Like everything else written by Jonathan Spence, The Chan's Great Continent is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in China. Spence is one of the greatest Sinologists of our time, and his...
The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds
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"Like everything else written by Jonathan Spence, The Chan's Great Continent is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in China. Spence is one of the greatest Sinologists of our time, and his...