HongFei cultures

New Title Autumn 2007

Chinese Moons Lunes de Chine

[ Edition HongFei Cultures | Collection Belle Île Formosa | ISBN 978-2-35558-003-1]

YANG Huan died at the age of 23 and is hailed as the first Chinese writer to write for children. Through Chinese Moons, he tells a story inspired by traditional legends of China, enhanced with surprising paintings of Thomas NYS.

text YANG Huan | illustration Thomas NYS

tale translated from Chinese to French

illustrated for adults and children above six years of age

album 25x25 cm, 48 pages | full colours, hardback

key words legend, imagination, fantasy

People say that in China, Chang'E la Belle drank a magic potion of immortality and flew to the moon. She has had to live there ever since.

But they certainly forgot to tell you that the divine Palace of the Moon is not a peaceful place to live in. In fact, its occupents seem to be trapped in a "divine comedy" and can't help gazing at our Earth, in the hope of escaping from their melancholy.

Throughout the album, one impertinent scene after another lead the reader all the way up to the last page, where he/she is, so to speak, no more on Earth.

Storyline

The 9999 ladies of the Palace of the Moon have had enough of the "unbearable lightness of being" in the company of Chang'E la Belle. In secret, they dream of a life totally different on another planet. Brought back to the reality by a naughty trick of the little White Rabbit, they hassel the Old man under the Moon and try to make him talk of life on the Earth ...

Author

YANG Huan (1930 China - 1954 Taiwan) is hailed as a pionnier in children's literature in Modern China. He lost his mother while he was very young and suffered a lot from life in his boyhood. However, the works he created for children are full of joy and hope. First published at the age of 20, he arrived in Taiwan after the civil war and died in a tragic car accident three years later.

He published about forty lyric poems in addition to the twenty rhymes of Songs of Fireflies (ed. HongFei Cultures) well known to school children in Taiwan.

Illustrator

Thomas NYS likes telling stories through his drawing, but also using writing as a means to nourrish the images he creates. Scenery and figures in his composition are often set in unexpected spatial relations, bringing about as many delicate moments of poetry.

The first exhibition of his drawings was held in EHESS (Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales) in Paris octobre 2007, followed by other on-going events.

To order

ISBN 978-2-35558-003-1

Issued by CEDIF Diffusion / DAUDIN Distribution

Available for individual readers in French bookshops since October 2007

Price 13,20 euros TTC