Essays on Chinese fiction writers provides information how these writers were impacted by the Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School, the change in intellectual activity from Beijing to Shanghai, the Literary Research Association, the introduction of foreign literature and literary theory, the evolution of Chinese prose, the May Fourth writers, "I" Fiction, the Sun Society, the Creation Society and the writing of propagandistic literature.
Bio-bibliographical guide covering the lives and works of Chinese writers of contemporary Chinese literature. The authors covered all had well-established careers by the 1990s; most captured their audiences and gained critical recognition in the 1970s and 1980s. The economic, political, and social changes of the 1990s, including the commercialization of literature and the relaxation of limits on expression, had great influence on the literature of these writers.
The Columbia Companion to Modern Chinese Literature features more than fifty short essays on specific writers and literary trends from the Qing period (1895–1911) to the present. The volume opens with thematic essays on the politics and ethics of writing literary history, the formation of the canon, the relationship between language and form, the role of literary institutions and communities, the effects of censorship, the representation of the Chinese diaspora, the rise and meaning of Sinophone literature, and the role of different media in the development of literature. Subsequent essays focus on authors, their works, and the schools with which they were aligned, featuring key names, titles, and terms in English and in Chinese characters. Woven throughout are pieces on late Qing fiction, popular entertainment fiction, martial arts fiction, experimental theater, post-Mao avant-garde poetry, post–martial law fiction from Taiwan, contemporary genre fiction from China, and recent Internet literature. The volume includes essays on such authors as Liang Qichao, Lu Xun, Shen Congwen, Eileen Chang, Jin Yong, Mo Yan, Wang Anyi, Gao Xingjian, and Yan Lianke. Both a teaching tool and a go-to research companion, this volume is a one-of-a-kind resource for mastering modern literature in the Chinese-speaking world.
In Contending for the "Chinese Modern", Xiaoping Wang studies the writing of fiction in 1940s China. Through a practice of political hermeneutics of fictional texts and social subtexts, it explores how social modernity and literary modernity intertwined with and interacted upon each other in the development of modern Chinese literature. It not only makes critical reappraisement of some renowned modern Chinese writers, but also sheds fresh lights on a series of theoretical problems pertaining to the issue of plural modernities, in which the problematic of subjectivity, class consciousness and identity politics are the key words as well as the concrete procedures that it employs to undertake the ideological analysis. The manuscript signifies a new paradigm in studies of modern Chinese literature.
Modern Chinese literature has been flourishing for over a century, with varying degrees of intensity and energy at different junctures of history and points of locale. An integral part of world literature from the moment it was born, it has been in constant dialogue with its counterparts from the rest of the world. As it has been challenged and enriched by external influences, it has contributed to the wealth of literary culture of the entire world. In terms of themes and styles, modern Chinese literature is rich and varied; from the revolutionary to the pastoral, from romanticism to feminism, from modernism to post-modernism, critical realism, psychological realism, socialist realism, and magical realism. Indeed, it encompasses a full range of ideological and aesthetic concerns. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature presents a broad perspective on the development and history of literature in modern China. It offers a chronology, introduction, bibliography, and over 400 cross-referenced dictionary entries on authors, literary and historical developments, trends, genres, and concepts that played a central role in the evolution of modern Chinese literature.
In the first half of the twentieth century, China moved from a millennium of imperial rule to the Communist Party-led People’s Republic of China which remains today. China in Transformation argues that this enormously significant period in Chinese history saw wrenching change throughout Chinese society amounting to a social, cultural and political transformation. This new, fully revised and updated edition takes full advantage of new research and formerly unavailable material to analyse the fascinating processes of revolution, reform, reaction and change in China during the period. Mackerras: · Discusses the wars, occupations and uprisings that marked the period, including the Boxer Rebellion and the Japanese occupation and includes a new chapter on postwar China and the Civil War · Examines nation-building and revolutions, including the successful communist movement that has led to the rise of today’s state · Acknowledges the prevalence of poverty and famine in the period but also gives space to the areas in which there was progress: the introduction of mass, secular education, improvements in the status of women, and in a new chapter, details significant developments in culture, literature and theatre Written in an accessible style, with a rich collection of Documents, Chronology, Glossary, a Guide to Further Reading,and a Who’s Who summarising the careers and contributions of the main figures, this new edition is essential for all those interested in understanding China’s modern history.
Jin Feng proposes that representation of the "new woman" in Communist Chinese fiction of the earlier twentieth century was paradoxically one of the ways in which male writers of the era explored, negotiated, and laid claim to their own emerging identity as "modern" intellectuals.
This volume gathers personal reflections on life and literature by 44 of China's leading authors. It aims to illustrate how Chinese society and its creative writing have supported, competed and fought with each other for the past 40 years and more. Much of what is revealed here is mundane, but the pressure of bringing art to social and political causes, indeed the universal pressure to survive, forges this collection into a very human document. The strengths and weaknesses of these essays offer a window on those of modern Chinese literature itself. Realism was the favoured literary doctrine of the day, and, reflecting this, most of these essays speak for themselves - about war, revolution, betrayal and commitment.
This is the story of the workers of Tianjin (Tientsin) and how, in the first half of the 20th century, they helped shape Tianjin's identity as the major industrial centre of North China. This text should be of interest to students of the period covered, and also to those students of Communist China who wish to understand the antecedents of China's current urban society and trace the roots of powerful continuities. The book offers a wealth of detail on material life, forms of entertainment, local festivals and individual rites of passage and makes use of studies of the local economy carried out by contemporaries and in the People's Republic. The Workers of Tianjin is a contribution to both Chinese labour history and urban history.
This volume serves as a guide to all facets of China study: from advice on choosing an appropriate literary dictionary to finding the most recent yearbooks that offer statistical data about the contemporary economy. China Bibliography does not restrict itself to one particular 'discipline', but considers the development of Chinese civilization as a whole, from its imperial beginnings to the present, and therefore demonstrates how one would find information about Chinese history, literature, religion, linguistics, collectanea, as well as present day PRC economic and political policies. Because this book also explains how bibliographical data on China has accumulated over the last 300 years (including within China itself), it also may help the reader understand the significance of a particular type of reference work.
