DIVAn anthology of translated short stories from Chinese writers of the 1980s. Authors considered “avant-garde” because work reflects the seriousness of revolutionary concerns, the disinterest in the progress of the Chinese nation and celebra/div

Filled with mirages, hallucinations, myths, mental puzzles, and the fantastic, the contemporary experimental fiction of the Chinese avant-garde represents a genre of storytelling unlike any other. Whether engaging the worn spectacle of history, expressing seemingly unmotivated violence, or reinventing outlandish Tibetan myths, these stories are defined by their devotion to theatrics and their willful apathy toward everything held sacred by the generation that witnessed the Cultural Revolution. Jing Wang has selected provocative examples of this new school of writing, which gained prominence in the late 1980s. Contradicting many long-cherished beliefs about Chinese writers—including the alleged tradition of writing as a political act against authoritarianism—these stories make a dramatic break from conventions of modern Chinese literature by demonstrating an irreverence toward history and culture and by celebrating the artificiality of storytelling. Enriched by the work of a distinguished group of translators, this collection presents an aesthetic experience that may have outraged many revolutionary-minded readers in China, but one that also occupies an important place in the canon of Chinese literature. China’s Avant-Garde Fiction brings together a group of exceptional writers (including Raise the Red Lantern author Su Tong) to the attention of an English-speaking audience. This book will be enjoyed by those interested in Chinese literature, culture, and society—particularly readers of contemporary fiction. Contributors. Bei Cun, Can Xue, Gei Fei, Ma Yuan, Su Tong, Sun Ganlu, Yu Hua Translators. Eva Shan Chou, Michael S. Duke, Howard Goldblatt, Ronald R. Janssen, Andrew F. Jones, Denis C. Mair, Victor H. Mair, Caroline Mason, Beatrice Spade, Kristina M. Torgeson, Jian Zhang, Zhu Hong

An insightful look into contemporary Chinese avant-garde fiction and the problem of Chinese postmodernity

This book examines the works of three leading writers-Su Tong, Yu Hua, and Ge Fei-and their significant contributions to the genre of Chinese avant-garde fiction.

Book on Chinese cinema and literature

"Ma Yuan: The Chinese Avant-Garde, Metafiction, and Post-Postmodernism in the works of Ma Yuan provides the most comprehensive study to date on one of China's most influential contemporary authors, Ma Yuan. By engaging in close readings of narratologically complex works of metafiction, the author offers a reappraisal of the role Ma Yuan played within the rise of postmodern fiction within China and offers new interpretive possibilities for the Chinese Avant-Garde movement of the 1980s through demonstrating that rather than being predominantly 'formalist word games' or 'narrative traps', Ma Yuan's works of metafiction functioned as Foucauldian 'heterotopias' which allowed for the creation of distinctly Post-modern and Post-socialist 'possible worlds'. This book also analyses Ma Yuan's recent post-2000 output and in doing so explores the shifting dynamics of literary self-reflexivity and the 'Post-postmodern' within the contemporary context of 'Xi Jinping era modernity'. This book argues that Ma Yuan's recent works display a distinct movement towards 'metamodern' aesthetics alongside a rising anthropocenic awareness and eco-consciousness which offer key insights into the post-postmodern condition within a Chinese context"--

-- Asia Week

Most studies of Chinese literature conflate the category of the future with notions of progress and nation building, and with the utopian visions broadcast by the Maoist and post-Mao developmental state. The future is thus understood as a preconceived endpoint that is propagated, at times even imposed, by a center of power. By contrast, Tales of Futures Past introduces "anticipation"—the expectations that permeate life as it unfolds—as a lens through which to reexamine the textual, institutional, and experiential aspects of Chinese literary culture from the 1950s to 2011. In doing so, Paola Iovene connects the emergence of new literary genres with changing visions of the future in contemporary China. This book provides a nuanced and dynamic account of the relationship between state discourses, market pressures, and individual writers and texts. It stresses authors' and editors' efforts to redefine what constitutes literature under changing political and economic circumstances. Engaging with questions of translation, temporality, formation of genres, and stylistic change, Iovene mines Chinese science fiction and popular science, puts forward a new interpretation of familiar Chinese avant-garde fiction, and offers close readings of texts that have not yet received any attention in English-language scholarship. Far-ranging in its chronological scope and impressive in its interdisciplinary approach, this book rethinks the legacies of socialism in postsocialist Chinese literary modernity.