Katherine was born in Wellington, New Zealand, on October 14, 1888. Her real name was Catherine Boussamp. Her family had nothing to do with Russia. Her father was a successful banker and well-established in Wellington society. Catherine's childhood was spent surrounded by Victorian cultural customs and New Zealand's beautiful natural environment. At the age of 15, she left home and came to London, England, to study at Queen's College, where she studied French, German and music courses, and began to write some short prose and poetry. Three years later she reluctantly returned to New Zealand. In July 1908, she persuaded her father to allow her to live in England, leaving her hometown and never returning. She used the name Katherine Mansfield as a pen name, settled in London as a writer, and began her writing career. The bohemian life makes her often feel lonely and helpless, and the real life is far from her imagination. Random personal interactions and reckless sex didn't bring her much pleasure. Her unhappy marriage to George Brown caused her to leave him the day after their wedding. She then traveled to Bavaria, and her book "In the German Apartment" published in 1911 expressed the author's helpless state of disillusionment.
In 1914, her collection of stories Rhythm and Melancholy Reviews was published by her first lodger, the sociologist and former literary critic Middleton Moe, who later became her husband. Edited and published with the assistance of Li. The second marriage brought her happiness. After the start of the First World War, she continued to travel back and forth between Britain and France, and met her only brother. This meeting prompted her to turn her attention to her hometown in New Zealand and her childhood memories. However, her brother died on the battlefield, which not only inflicted additional pain on her frail body, but also made her feel guilty for being emotionally alienated from her family. In the midst of depression, Katherine Mansfield wrote passionately, and her famous novel "Prelude" revealed her fond memories of her hometown in New Zealand.
It was at this moment that her aimless love life seemed to suddenly find sustenance. This should be attributed to the famous ballet agent Sergey Diaghilev. At that time, the Russian Ballet Company he led was touring major European cities, causing a huge sensation on the European stage, and a Russian cultural craze followed. Catherine watched all the performances with great joy, never missed every concert, and devoted her whole body and mind to the new cultural atmosphere.
Her love for Russian culture makes her think that she is a Russian in terms of character. The characters in her works are all "Russian", their inner worlds are full of entanglements and struggles, and her brushwork naturally resembles that of famous Russian artists. "I can't express Tolstoy's great influence and inspiration on me. A few words of gratitude are far from enough." After reading Dostoyevsky's "Ghost", she was deeply impressed by the writer's "darkness" Moved by "People Under the Street Lamp", Tuo Shi's psychological description left a deep imprint on her own creations.
It should be said that the person who had the greatest influence on Katherine Mansfield was Chekhov. Chekhov was not only her favorite short story master, but also a companion with whom she could secretly share her worries and fears. She often talked with Chekhov in her diary: "Oh, why did you die at such an early age? Why do I never have the opportunity to talk to you again!" In a letter to her husband, Middleton Murray, she said: "I am so sentimental about the physical and mental loneliness and physical pain, as if I can never regain my complete self... Chekhov would have understood this pain."
Critics have always believed that, Katherine Mansfield "borrowed" material from Chekhov to write her own works, and many people mercilessly criticized her creations for sometimes plagiarism. To be fair, Catherine's creations are brewed and carefully constructed with the nutrients provided by the master. Even the Russian literary community believes that Katherine Mansfield's works are the most sincere compliments to the giants of Russian literature. Catherine's first work translated into Russian appeared in Soviet newspapers in September 1922, three months before her death. Her final days were spent at the Institution for the Harmonious Development of Mankind hosted by Georges Goodejève in Fontainebleau, France. In this environment where more than 40 Russian cultural people lived and where the wonderful Russian cultural atmosphere was everywhere, Katherine Mansfield raised animals, tended the flower gardens, wrote and lived a peaceful life. Western newspapers also began to compare her artistic achievements with Chekhov's. In 1923, the Soviet Union officially expressed interest in her, and the Soviet State Publishing House published the Russian versions of two of her novels. Later, she won official recognition from Western cultural circles for her work's sympathy for the lower classes. Two of the most authoritative English textbooks in the 1960s selected her novel "A Cup of Tea" as a grammar practice text.
No one has disturbed as many writers with her creations as Katherine Mansfield. People say she looks like D.H. Lawrence and is similar to V. Woolf. The era of her creation was accompanied by loneliness and suffering from illness, so her works mostly dealt with family events and marital misfortune. She depicts characters with exquisite detail, often meticulously carving out details. It was many years after her death that her influence on the short story genre was gradually recognized and acknowledged.
Her life is just like the famous "Garden Party" she wrote in 1921, and she is like Laura in the novel. We see a simple and stubborn rich woman break away from the hustle and bustle of the garden party and bravely approach the outside world and the face of death. It was a face that was peaceful and uninterrupted by everything in the world. This face of death seemed even more real, more energetic, and more beautiful than the living people around her.
On January 9, 1923, Katherine Mansfield, who had suffered from tuberculosis for many years, died at the age of 45. In Catherine's world, death is quiet and comfortable, even beautiful. See, her last words before she died were: “I love the rain, I want to feel it on my face.
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