This book is the first comprehensive study of the reception of Tennessee
Williams in China, from rejection and/or misgivings to cautious
curiosity and to full-throated acceptance, in the context of profound
changes in China's socioeconomic and cultural life and mores since the
end of the Cultural Revolution. It fills a conspicuous gap in
scholarship in the reception of one of the greatest American playwrights
and joins book-length studies of Chinese reception of Shakespeare,
Ibsen, O'Neill, Brecht, and other important Western playwrights whose
works have been eagerly embraced and appropriated and have had catalytic
impact on modern Chinese cultural life.