To Death’s Love
by Tong Wen
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Year Published: Dec 2024 Pages: 328pp Language: Traditional Chinese Retail Price: SGD30 (Singapore) Dimensions: 148mm x 210mm ISBN: 978-981-94-0632-6 (Paperback) Buyer Request: Final PDF Available Publisher/Imprint: TrendLit Publishing Rights Available: World (Exp Singapore) Suggested Categorisation: Fiction, Contemporary Literature, Urbanisation |
About To Death’s Love
Amid the flux of historical events and political shifts, nations oscillate between collaboration and division, maintaining a delicate balance on the brink of collapse. A certain authoritarian state finds itself in a severe demographic crisis, leading to a stark "urban monocentrism" phenomenon. Citizens yearn for the convenience and advancement of urban life, while the outskirts become desolate and barren. To address this, the government enforces strict "mandatory reproduction" and "value-based point" policies, restricting population mobility and incentivizing growth.
Meanwhile, the people are growing increasingly sensitive to identity and social class, and the once-sacred ideals of freedom and eternal values seem to fade and distort. Against this fictional yet plausible dystopian backdrop, the novel explores how abstract questions of love, life, and death manifest within the lives of individuals and shape their relationships and destinies.
About the Author
Tong Wen, is the pen name of Luo Zhaoliang (b.1989) in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China. A self-media personality and writer, he graduated from the University of Science and Technology Beijing in 2014. The following year, he continued his studies in Theatre Studies at the Free University of Berlin, though he left before completing his degree.
Since 2015, Tong Wen has written articles for the Chinese cultural magazine Know China. In 2017, he launched his own self-media platform focused on arts and culture. In 2018, he managed the personal social media account of renowned Chinese guqin musician Wu Na. Tong Wen began work on his novel To Death’s Love in 2019.
《至死之愛》簡介
在經歷了眾多歷史事件和政治變遷後，各國在合作與分裂之間不斷搖擺，世界始終處於與崩潰共舞的脆弱平衡中。某個極權國家陷入了嚴重的人口危機，導致更為嚴峻的「城市單極化」現象。人們渴望更發達的城市生活，城外地區逐漸變得蕭條荒蕪。為了改變這種局面，政府實施了嚴格的「強制生育」和「價值積分」政策，以限制人口流動並增加人口數量。
在這種背景下，人們對身份和階層的敏感度顯著提升，原本永恆的理想和自由的光芒似乎也開始黯淡，甚至異化。這部小說以此虛構卻合情合理的反烏托邦未來為背景，將人們置於更加極端的環境中，旨在探索愛與生死等生命最本質的抽象問題，如何在個體生活中展現，並影響他們的關係和命運。
作者簡介
童文，原名羅兆良，一九八九年出生於中國陝西省西安市，是一位自媒體人和寫作者。二〇一四年，他從中國北京科技大學畢業，隨後於二〇一五年前往德國柏林自由大學學習戲劇學，隔年肄業回國。
自二〇一五年起，童文開始為中國文化雜誌《知中》撰寫文章，並於二〇一七年開始運營自己的藝術文化自媒體平台。二〇一八年，他為中國著名古琴音樂家巫娜的個人賬號運營者。二〇一九年，童文開始著手創作長篇小說《至死之愛》。