法國華裔作家、藝術家山颯(原名閻妮)於1997 年始用法文創作，其長篇小說《圍棋少女》(La joueuse de go)榮獲法國龔固爾高中生文學獎的殊榮，至今已出版多部法語長篇小說。自2001 年起，其繪畫作品相繼於法國、美國、日本、中國展出，2009 年獲頒法國政府頒發藝術文學騎士勳章；2011 年獲法國總統頒發榮譽軍團騎士勳章，在當今法國文壇佔有重要的一席之地。《柳的四生》 (Les quatre vies du saule)為山颯1999 年的作品，作者於文本中描述四段人生故事，通過柳的故事串起了四生，圍繞著生命的意義進行哲學思考。本文藉由「柳」與「留」的諧音，以及其多面向的意涵：寄情、離別、有文才的女子等，企圖析論作者如何以柳樹作為家國符碼，刻劃受困於傳統女性角色和禮法的春寧、追求世俗功名的重陽、渴求愛情的現代女強人靜兒等人物，面對人生理想與傳統家庭觀的拉扯，該選擇「離散」亦或「回歸」，並對家國有何認同觀？
The Chinese-French Author-Shan sa began to use French as her writing language from 1997. Her first well know novel -La joueuse de go awards French ＂Prix Goncourt des lycéens＂ and has been translated into more than seventeen languages. Besides writing, since 2001 her paintings has been exhibited around France, the Unites States, Japan, and China as well. Awarded the Order of Arts and Letters as Knight on 2011, Shan sa indeed plays an important role in French literature. Shan sa has published her work Les quatre vies du saule on 1999 where she tried to describe the meaning of life through four- life story by the codes of willow. In this paper, we take the willow's metaphor as ＂left＂ and focus on how Shan sa narrate the story of Chun-Ning, of the modern female-Jing, and of the fame-pursuit myth of Chong yang.