Wang Wen-hsing caused a sensation in Taiwan in 1972 with publication of Family Catastrophe, his first full-length novel. Many critics were outraged, called it socially irresponsible, morally corrupt, and stylistically irrational, but the novel weathered its controversial reception to become what is now widely regarded as a masterpiece in modern Chinese fiction and the benchmark of Taiwan’s Modernist movement.

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.

Set in post-1949 Taiwan, this novel is an intimate revelation of a family's journey to catastrophe. The rather of the all-too-ordinary Fan family suddenly flees from home; his son, Fan Yeh, sets off to search for him but is repeatedly unsuccessful, returning alone to the anxiously waiting 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.

王文興，福建省福州市人。1939年生，後去颱。他入學較晚，一入學就是三年級。他從高中三年級開始寫小說，他的第一篇小說，曾在亞洲雜誌舉辦的學生組小說比賽中得到第三名。颱北師大附中畢業後，考取颱灣大學外文係。1960年和同班同學白先勇、歐陽子、陳若曦等人創辦《現代文學》雜誌。早期的《現代文學》編輯事務多由他負責。颱灣大學畢業後，他去美國依阿華大學的作傢工作室從事研究，並獲碩士學位。返迴颱灣後，在颱灣大學外文係任教授，並擔任中文係的課程。他專心教書和寫作，極少參加社會上的活動。但1978年颱灣鄉土文學大論戰時，他卻多次錶態，對颱灣的鄉土文學持否定態度。他的作品不多，但大都以兒童或青少年為主人公或為背景，以兒童的悲傷和恐懼刻畫人生。他的小說中錶現得最沉著有力的主題是：命運。著有短篇小說集《龍天樓》、《玩具手槍》，長篇小說《傢變》、《背海的人》。