Able to shape-shift and ride the clouds, wielding a magic cudgel and playing tricks, Sun Wukong (aka Monkey or the Monkey King) first attained superstar status as the protagonist of the sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West (Xiyou ji) and lives on in literature and popular culture internationally. In this far-ranging study Hongmei Sun discusses the thousand-year evolution of this figure in imperial China and multimedia adaptations in Republican, Maoist, and post-socialist China and the United States, including the film Princess Iron Fan (1941), Maoist revolutionary operas, online creative writings influenced by Hong Kong film A Chinese Odyssey (1995), and Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel American Born Chinese.

At the intersection of Chinese studies, Asian American studies, film studies, and translation and adaptation studies, Transforming Monkey provides a renewed understanding of the Monkey King character as a rebel and trickster, and demonstrates his impact on the Chinese self-conception of national identity as he travels through time and across borders.

About the Author

Hongmei Sun is assistant professor of modern and classical languages at George Mason University.

Reviews

"Sun's well-executed book deserves the attention not only of the fans of the Monkey King, but also of those interested in the broad questions of the techniques, the status, and the implications of adaptation, rewriting, and representation more generally."

* Journal of Asian Studies *

"A delightful work of literary history with the advantage of incorporating several media. . . . Sun's study deploys the Monkey King to bridge the gap between classical and modern/contemporary literature in a way that allows students of traditional Chinese and modern popular literature and media to connect."

* China Review International: A Journal of Reviews of Scholarly Literature in Chinese Studies *

"[R]ecommend[ed]... as a contribution to the scholarly literature on European-Asian cultural interaction in an important period of modern history."

* Asian Studies Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780295743196
Author Hongmei Sun
Format Paperback
Page Count 232
Imprint University of Washington Press
Publisher University of Washington Press
Weight(grams) 340g