Bonnie S. McDougall

Acheng

Three classic novellas--The King of Trees, The King of Chess, The King of Children--that completely altered the landscape of contemporary Chinese fiction.

The King of Trees

Kam Louie

In this ground-breaking book, Bonnie S. McDougall and Kam Louie present the first comprehensive, integrated survey of twentieth-century Chinese literature. The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century traces the development of Chinese literature from the Boxer Rebellion, when the strains of Western influence first emerged, to the Tiananmen Massacre, when dissident poets, such as Bei Dao, earned international acclaim and indefinite exile from the mainland. Each of the book's three chronological sections contains individual chapters examining the poetry, drama, and fiction of the period and includes an introduction outlining the historical and social context of the individual writers and their works. By analyzing this captivating literary tradition in terms of subject, theme, language, structure, style, intended audience, and cultural impact, the authors present a vivid picture of this important literature and a unique window on twentieth-century Chinese society.

The Literature of China in the Twentieth Century

Revelation & Communication

Bei Dao's Poetry

Beidao

Most of the poems in Bei Dao's new collection Old Snow were written while the author was aboard. After obtaining a passport in 1985, he was finally able to accept the many invitations he had received to take part in poetry reading in Europe and America over the next few years, often accompanied by his wife, the painter Shao Fei, and their daughter, Tiantian.

Poems

旧雪

Xun Lu

Guangping Xu

This book opens up three new topics in modern Chinese literary history: the intimate lives of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping as a couple; real and imagined love-letters in modern Chinese literature; and concepts of privacy in China. The scandalous affair between modern China's greatest writer and his former student is revealed in their letters to each other between 1925 and 1929. Publication of the letters in a heavily edited version in 1933 was intended partly to profit from a current trend forliterary couples to publish their private letters, but another reason was to assert control over their love story, taking it away from the gossip-mongers. The biographies in Part I, based on the unedited letters, reveal such hitherto neglected information as Xu Guangping's early tendencies towards lesbianism; her gender reversal games and Lu Xun's willing participation in them; Xu Guangping's two early attempts at suicide; and Lu Xun's attempts to play down Xu Guangping's political activism and to impress readers with his own militancy. Part II shows how Lu Xun chose to publish their edited letters in the context of current Chinese epistolary fiction and love-letters published by their authors. Part III provides unique evidence on the nature of privacy in modern China through a comparison between the unedited and edited correspondence. Textual evidence shows their intimate secrets about their affairs, their bodies, and their domestic lives; their fear of gossip; their longing for a secluded life together; and their ambivalent attitudes towards the traditional conflict between public service and private or selfish interests. Although it has sometimes been claimed that Chinese culture lacks a sense of privacy, this study reveals the contents, functions, and values of privacy in the early twentieth century.

The Intimate Lives of Lu Xun and Xu Guangping

Love-letters and Privacy in Modern China

The authors and audiences for twentieth century Chinese literature, especially fiction, are examined in this book. While modern Chinese fictions are imaginary in that they do not constitute reliable portraits of Chinese life, they can reveal fascinating insights into the writers themselves and their implied audiences. The book also includes substantial reference to poetry, drama, film, and the visual arts as well as to the political and social context in which they appear.

Modern Chinese Literature in the Twentieth Century

Fictional Authors, Imaginary Audiences

Tse-tung Mao

Zedong Mao

The writings of Mao Zedong have been circulated throughout the world more widely, perhaps, than those of any other single person this century. The “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art” has occupied a prominent position among his many works and has been the subject of intense scrutiny both within and outside China. This text has undoubted importance to modern Chinese literature and history. In particular, it reveals Mao’s views on such questions as the relationship between writers or works of literature and their audience, or the nature and value of different kinds of literary products. In this translation and commentary, Bonnie S. McDougall finds that Mao was in fact ahead of many of his critics in the West and his Chinese contemporaries in his discussion of literary issues. Unlike the majority of modern Chinese writers deeply influenced by Western theories of literature and society (including Marxism), Mao remained close to traditional patterns of thought and avoided the often mechanical or narrowly literal interpretations that were the hallmark of Western schools current in China in the early twentieth century. Many of the detailed discussions on the “Talks” in the West have been concerned with their political and historical significance. However, since Mao is a literary figure of some importance in twentieth-century China, McDougall finds it worthwhile to follow up his published remarks on the nature and source of literature and the means of its evaluation. By better understanding the complex and revolutionary ideas contained in the “Talks,” McDougall suggests we may acquire the necessary analytical tools for a more fruitful investigation into contemporary Chinese literature.

A Translation of the 1943 Text with Commentary

Mao Zedong’s “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art”

The essays in this volume constitute an exceptionally broad and inclusive account of Chinese literature and performing arts since 1949. Extending beyond fiction to poetry and drama, and covering song, opera, and film as well, these essays reveal a more lively and varied cultural life than that disclosed by studies confined to fiction and literary politics. Rather than stopping at the assumption that art reflects Party or government policy, the essays uncover the traditional roots of popular literature and performing art by employing literary and artistic methods of analysis. While often lacking in appeal to Western audiences, these popular arts nonetheless have their own artistic validity and convey complex meanings to broadly based Chinese audiences. The materials and analyses presented here have social as well as cultural relevance. Variety and change rather than monolithic uniformity have characterized post-1949 cultural bureaucracies, writers, performers, and audiences. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1984.

Bonnie S. McDougall

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