Mark Twain in China

Huckleberry Finn has been translated into Chinese no fewer than ninety times.

That is from new and intriguing Mark Twain in China, by Selina Lai-Henderson.

I had not known that Twain played a significant role in speaking up for the Chinese in America, and fighting the prejudice against them.  Later in his career he described himself as an “anti-imperialist” and “Chinese Boxer” in the fight against Western imperialism.  Lai-Henderson notes:

In one of his anti-imperialist writings, “The United States of Lyncherdom” (1901), he urged American missionaries to leave China, for they should “come home and convert these Christians!”

Recommended.

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