Negotiating the Politics of Chinese Fiction: The Case of Yan Lianke’s “Child”

2021 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 434-458
Author(s):  
Haiyan Xie
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Fiction

On the Margins of Modernism

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Rosenmeier
Keyword(s):  
Short Stories ◽  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Chinese Literature ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Chinese Fiction ◽  
Scant Attention ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Chinese Writing

Xu Xu and Wumingshi were among the most widely read authors in China during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945). Despite being an integral part of the Chinese literary scene, their bestselling fiction has, however, been given scant attention in histories of Chinese writing. This book is the first extensive study of Xu Xu and Wumingshi in English or any other Western language and it re-establishes their importance within the popular Chinese literature of the 1940s. Their romantic novels and short stories were often set abroad and featured a wide range of stereotypes, from pirates, spies and patriotic soldiers to ghosts, spirits and exotic women who confounded the mostly cosmopolitan male protagonists. Christopher Rosenmeier’s detailed analysis of these popular novels and short stories shows that such romances broke new ground by incorporating and adapting narrative techniques and themes from the Shanghai modernist writers of the 1930s, notably Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying. The study thereby contests the view that modernism had little lasting impact on Chinese fiction, and it demonstrates that the popular literature of the 1940s was more innovative than usually imagined, with authors, such as those studied here, successfully crossing the boundaries between the popular and the elite, as well as between romanticism and modernism, in their bestselling works.

The river fans out: Chinese fiction since the late 1970s

2003 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
HENRY Y. H. ZHAO
Keyword(s):  
Western China ◽  
Political Struggle ◽  
Religious Consciousness ◽  
Chinese Fiction ◽  
The World ◽  
Recent Trends ◽  
Art For Art's Sake ◽  
Artistic Quality ◽  
Scholarly Attention ◽  
Mao Era

The 25 years of the post-Mao era of Chinese fiction is divided into two distinct stages: the pre-1989 period, and the post-1989 period. If this division is true about almost everything else in China, it is especially true with literature. This is because literature had been used as a lethal weapon for political struggle by Mao before and during his regime, and this tradition, though strongly challenged in the post-Mao era, still lingers, though in very different forms now and much watered down. Even the recent trends of art for art's sake, or for the sake of entertainment, or for the sake of religious consciousness, could also be read as political gestures, and are indeed treated as such by Chinese literary officialdom, and also by Western China experts. Despite the fact that Chinese fiction has been highly politicized, this paper will examine, as much as possible, the development of fiction as an art. Only the artistic quality can support my argument that recent novels from China deserve not only more scholarly attention but also more reader appreciation than they have hitherto received around the world.

scholarly journals Variations on gui and the Trouble with Ghosts in Modern Chinese Fiction

2016 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Imbach
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Systematic Study ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Chinese Fiction ◽  
Republican Era ◽  
Modern Chinese Fiction

AbstractGhosts appear in a great number of fictional works from the early modern period to the present. Yet, to this date no systematic study of this very heterogeneous textual corpus has been undertaken. This paper proposes as a useful starting point a review of figures and discourses of spectrality, mainly in Republican-era literary and critical texts, that focuses in particular on the different meanings and usages of the term

Inter-Subjectivity and Imagined Sovereignty: John Fryer’s New-Age Novel Contest in 1895 and the Rise of Modern Chinese Novel

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (01) ◽  
pp. 95-119
Author(s):  
Dadui Yao
Keyword(s):  
New Age ◽  
Modern Chinese ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Chinese Fiction ◽  
John Fryer ◽  
Modern Chinese Fiction

The concept of inter-subjectivity serves as a starting point to discuss a book-writing competition sponsored by John Fryer in 1895 and the rise of modern Chinese fiction. His departure from China the following year had two possible reasons: money and the expectations. The money issue was related to the prompt initiation and excessive expences of this contest; besides, the contest specific requirements contributed greatly to the identity awareness of the Chinese writers. The horizon of one’s expectations touches the problem of subjectivities. A fusion of the expectations of the missionary and those of Chinese literati manifested itself in The New-Age Novel as inter-subjectivity. Nevertheless, the expression of imagined sovereignty of Chinese literati in the works presented at the contest went beyond Fryer’s expectations and gave birth to not only simply a Western impact and Chinese response and a Sino-centric pattern both which served as a spur to the rise of modern Chinese novel.

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