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Writing Pirates: Vernacular Fiction and Oceans in Late Ming China
In Writing Pirates, Yuanfei Wang connects Chinese literary production to emerging discourses of pirates and the sea. In the late Ming dynasty, so-called “Japanese pirates” raided southeast coastal China. Hideyoshi invaded Korea. Europeans sailed for overseas territories, and Chinese maritime merchants and emigrants founded diaspora communities in Southeast Asia. Travel writings, histories, and fiction of the period jointly narrate pirates and China’s Orient in maritime Asia. Wang shows that the late Ming discourses of pirates and the sea were fluid, ambivalent, and dialogical; they simultaneously entailed imperialistic and personal narratives of the “other”: foreigners, renegades, migrants, and marginalized authors. At the center of the discourses, early modern concepts of empire, race, and authenticity were intensively negotiated. Connecting late Ming literature to the global maritime world, Writing Pirates expands current discussions of Chinese diaspora and debates on Sinophone language and identity.  
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Writing Pirates: Vernacular Fiction and Oceans in Late Ming China
In Writing Pirates, Yuanfei Wang connects Chinese literary production to emerging discourses of pirates and the sea. In the late Ming dynasty, so-called “Japanese pirates” raided southeast coastal China. Hideyoshi invaded Korea. Europeans sailed for overseas territories, and Chinese maritime merchants and emigrants founded diaspora communities in Southeast Asia. Travel writings, histories, and fiction of the period jointly narrate pirates and China’s Orient in maritime Asia. Wang shows that the late Ming discourses of pirates and the sea were fluid, ambivalent, and dialogical; they simultaneously entailed imperialistic and personal narratives of the “other”: foreigners, renegades, migrants, and marginalized authors. At the center of the discourses, early modern concepts of empire, race, and authenticity were intensively negotiated. Connecting late Ming literature to the global maritime world, Writing Pirates expands current discussions of Chinese diaspora and debates on Sinophone language and identity.  
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Writing Pirates: Vernacular Fiction and Oceans in Late Ming China

Writing Pirates: Vernacular Fiction and Oceans in Late Ming China

by Yuanfei Wang
Writing Pirates: Vernacular Fiction and Oceans in Late Ming China
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Writing Pirates: Vernacular Fiction and Oceans in Late Ming China

Writing Pirates: Vernacular Fiction and Oceans in Late Ming China

by Yuanfei Wang

Overview

In Writing Pirates, Yuanfei Wang connects Chinese literary production to emerging discourses of pirates and the sea. In the late Ming dynasty, so-called “Japanese pirates” raided southeast coastal China. Hideyoshi invaded Korea. Europeans sailed for overseas territories, and Chinese maritime merchants and emigrants founded diaspora communities in Southeast Asia. Travel writings, histories, and fiction of the period jointly narrate pirates and China’s Orient in maritime Asia. Wang shows that the late Ming discourses of pirates and the sea were fluid, ambivalent, and dialogical; they simultaneously entailed imperialistic and personal narratives of the “other”: foreigners, renegades, migrants, and marginalized authors. At the center of the discourses, early modern concepts of empire, race, and authenticity were intensively negotiated. Connecting late Ming literature to the global maritime world, Writing Pirates expands current discussions of Chinese diaspora and debates on Sinophone language and identity.  

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780472902484
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Publication date: 06/23/2021
Sold by: Barnes & Noble
Format: eBook
Pages: 226
File size: 4 MB

About the Author

Yuanfei Wang is Associate Professor of Chinese Literature at Lingnan University in Hong Kong.

Table of Contents

Contents Introduction: Chinese Discourse of Pirates and the Early Modern Global World I. Southeast Asia Chapter 1: The Sea and the Sequel Chapter 2: Java in Discord II. Japan Chapter 3: Learning the Barbarian Tongue Chapter 4: Turning Pirates III. Jiangnan, China Chapter 5: Historical Narratives of the Pirate Kings Chapter 6: Publishing the Pirate’s Romance Conclusion: Stories of the Sea Index

What People are Saying About This

Xing Hang

“This is a promising and exciting book. Wang gives a solid and convincing portrayal of how Ming subjects, not just elites but also merchants and a wider segment of early modern Chinese society, saw themselves in relation to their empire, the tributary system, and the world beyond. She highlights the crucial role played by fiction writing on foreign adventures, marginal social figures such as pirates, and translation and transcription.”
—Xing Hang, Brandeis University
 

Kenneth Hall

“Writing Pirates is unique in that it draws from Asian literary sources to position Asian piracy and Chinese diaspora communities as alternatives to imperial corruption. While most recent studies have addressed piracy as it relates to historical rebellion and terrorism, as a continuum of threats to land-based societies, Wang instead approaches positive focal era regional piracy as a form of agency challenging political corruption.”
—Kenneth Hall, Ball State University
 

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