author

Bangqing Han

1856–1894

Best known for a vivid portrait of late-19th-century Shanghai, this Qing-dynasty novelist helped bring urban life and spoken language into Chinese fiction. His work remains especially famous through The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai.

1 Audiobook

海上花列傳

by Bangqing Han

About the author

Born in 1856 and dying in 1894, Han Bangqing was a Chinese writer of the late Qing period. He is most closely associated with The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai, a novel set in Shanghai's entertainment world that became known for its detailed social observation and its picture of city life.

Han Bangqing is often remembered as an important voice in the development of modern Chinese fiction because his writing drew on everyday speech and the rhythms of contemporary urban culture. Even in translation, his work is noted for its sharp attention to manners, money, status, and the complicated relationships that shaped Shanghai in his time.

Reliable portrait images were not clearly available from the sources I could confirm here, so no profile image is included.