Wang Wen-hsing caused a sensation Taiwan in 1972 with the publication of 'Family Catastrophe', his first full length novel. Many critics were outraged, calling it socially irresponsible, morally corrupt, and stylistically irrational, but the novel weather its controversial reception to become what is now regarded as a masterpiece in modern Chinese fiction and a benchmark of Taiwan's Modernist movement. Set in post-1949 Taiwan, this novel is an intimate revelation of a family's journey to catastrophe. The father of the all to ordinary Fan family suddenly flees from home; his son, Fan Yeh, sets off to search for him but is repeatably unsuccessful, returning alone to the anxiously awaiting mother. As it tracks Fan Yeh's fruitless search, Wang Wen-hsing's innovative narrative unfolds the history of this family, depicting relationships both tender and brutal and divulging secrets of poverty and abuse, love and hate. Working through the complex metaphor of the family, Wang Wen-hsing examines that dissolution of a traditional ethical system and cultural identity which is the harrowing and inevitable path to modernism. Often described as Joycean, 'Family Catastrophe' is significant for its stylistic and linguistic experimentation as well as for its disturbing and universal themes. It appears now in English for the first time. -- From book jacket.