关键词: 书信体小说, 殖民主义, 义和团运动, 东方主义

Abstract: Letters He Hasnt Received is a famous epistolary novel written by Elisabeth von Heyking， an important female writer in the early 20th century in Germany. The novel written from a westerners perspective and in a western narrative style tells about China in the eve of the Boxer Rebellion， which unfolds to some extent the Zeitgeist of the time， and the author， originally influenced by the imperialistic colonial thinking， has completed her own ideological upheaval in the process of writing the novel. This novel criticizes profoundly the nature of imperialism and colonialism， breaks the way of thinking of Orientalism which was built up with the discourse of Eurocentrialism and colonialism and provides the Chinese readers with a “mirror of others” for a better understanding of their own history.

Key words: epistolary novel, colonialism, the Boxer Rebellion, Orientalism