Six Records of a Floating Life
by Shen Fu
This is a novel against the despotism of the family. It’s about two young people who get to know each other aged between eight and 12, and they’re in love, but then their families have to leave Peking at the time of the Boxer Rebellion, in 1898-1901. What is interesting in the novel, although it’s very sentimental, is the idea of individual freedom, and also the way the young people rebel against this domination of the family and the way they find other means to live.
