The Money Demon

Its such a pity! I, too used to think of money and love as entirely separate things. So begins this popular autobiographical novel, written by litterateur, inventor, and business tycoon Chen Diexian (18791940), a remarkable intellectual whose life spanned the old China and the new. Chens novel is the story of his youth, and in it he chooses to focus on his amorous and erotic developmenta rare subject in Chinese literaturerevealing his passage from innocent boy, surrounded by females, to young man, armed with a new attitude toward money, business, and the women in his life. Chens unusual narrative, intimately combining romance and exhibitionism, unfolds to us an intriguing material reality as well as a powerful emotional world and may well be the first extended account of Chinese childhood and youth. The novel is built on our narrators relationships with the central women in his life: his mother; an affectionate nanny; his devoted wife by an arranged marriage; a tragic peasant girl; and above all, the girl next door and his most enduring love, knownafter the instrument she playsas Koto. Patrick Hanans graceful translation brings us Chens story at its disarming best, a popular romance that is at the same time original and distinctive in both voice and theme. First serialized in Shanghai in 1913, The Money Demon appears in English for the first time; included in an appendix is The Koto Story, a short epilogue to the novel.