The Song of Everlasting Sorrow

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THIS TRANSLATION IS based on the original version of the novel published in 1995 by the Zuojia chubanshe in Beijing. The translation is unabridged; however, there are a series of stylistic variances from the original. Chief among those are the length of paragraphs and sentences, and the presentation of direct dialogue. Long extended paragraphs and run-on sentences, both of which read fine in the Chinese original, have in many sections been broken up into shorter structures in this translation. As a challenge to herself and the reader, Wang Anyi intentionally refrained from using quotation marks and paragraph breaks to signal direct dialogue in the original, instead opting to embed dialogue directly into longer narrative sections. For the purpose of readability in English, the translators have added quotation marks and paragraph breaks in sections where direct dialogue appears (marked by the use of first-person pronouns). Other dialogue sections that use third-person pronouns have been left in their original form, embedded within longer paragraphs. Italics (which are not commonly used in Chinese text) have also been added as a stylistic device to indicate internal thought.

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