Finally a book to help students read original Chinese literature

Online, October 15, 2009 (Newswire.com) - Author, Kevin Nadolny, has published Capturing Chinese: Short Stories From Lu Xun's Nahan, an original approach to help students break into reading Chinese literature without the usual frustration of looking up obscure characters, misunderstanding historical events, and not knowing the background of the story.

Starting with no background in Chinese, Kevin Nadolny has spent the past eight years mastering Mandarin Chinese studying both at US schools and in Beijing. After going through many struggles during his own education, he has written a book designed to lessen the hardship on intermediate and advanced students breaking into reading Chinese literature.

"I would spend hours looking up characters in the dictionary by radical. A few pages in a novel would take me a day to read. I just knew there had to be a better way to read Chinese literature, but no books were available to bridge the gap between textbook stories and original literature," said Kevin Nadolny, author of Capturing Chinese: Short Stories From Lu Xun's Nahan. Kevin took this disappointment in Chinese textbooks and wrote his own book designed for students going through these same struggles.

According to Columbia professor of Chinese, Liu Liping, "as reading material for the students who are learning Chinese and interested in Chinese literature and culture, your book [Capturing Chinese] is amazing and special!"

Capturing Chinese utilizes the work of Lu Xun whose works continue to influence modern China and whose characters frequently appear in analogies for current events and in Chinese idioms. While Lu Xun is the pioneer of writing in vernacular Chinese, his stories can still be quite difficult even for the Chinese. In Capturing Chinese, footnotes highlight the more difficult vocabulary and pinyin is provided for the entire text. There is no need to constantly consult a dictionary or look up difficult characters by radical. Historical events, people and places are explained throughout and illustrations recreate the scenes.

Capturing Chinese: Short Stories from Lu Xun's Nahan is now available at www.capturingchinese.com and www.amazon.com.

About the author
The author has been studying Chinese for the past eight years. Starting with no background in the language he has gone on to master the language. Disappointed with the quality of intermediate and advanced Chinese books, he wrote this book focused on easing the intermediate/advanced student into reading some of China's best literature. He currently lives with his Chinese-speaking Japanese wife in Tokyo Japan. Kevin can be reached at [email protected].

About Capturing Chinese Publications LLC
Capturing Chinese Publications LLC is an academic press focused on bringing more quality Chinese textbooks to market. They pride themselves on offering their customers quality books that will improve their Chinese and on offering their authors substantial royalties to show that their hard work is greatly valued.

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Note to editors:
Review copies and excerpts available upon request. Kevin Nadolny available for interview upon request.