Fact in Fiction

Historical novels can be windows into other cultures and eras, but it's not always clear what's fact and what's fiction. Thousands have read Ba Jin's influential novel Family , but few realize how much he shaped his depiction of 1920s China to suit his story and his politics. In Fact in Fiction , Kristin Stapleton puts Ba Jin's bestseller into full historical context, both to illustrate how it successfully portrays human experiences during the 1920s and to reveal its historical distortions. Stap