Author: Zechen Xu
Publisher: Bridge 21 Publications
ISBN: 162643090X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 314
Book Description
This book contains six works that each reflect the different styles of the author in each period of his work, paying attention to men of low status, memories of childhood, campus life, and the living conditions of Beijing’s drifters. Told in a straightforward manner, all the stories in this book are told in the first person and can be regarded together as a spiritual autobiography. Xu Zechen won the sixth Lu Xun Literature Award for short stories, and short stories have always been the focus and intention of his creation.
The Selected Stories of Xu Zechen
Running Through Beijing
Author: Xu Zechen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781931883368
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Chinese literature published in the United States has tended to focus on politics -- think the Cultural Revolution and dissidents -- but there's a whole other world of writing out there. It's punk, dealing with the harsh realities lived by the millions of city-dwellers struggling to get by in the grey economy. Dunhuahg, recently out of prison for selling fake IDs, has just enough money for a couple of meals. He also has no place to stay and no prospects for earning more yuan. When he happens to meet a pretty woman selling pirated DVDs, he falls into both an unexpected romance and a new business venture. But when her on-and-off boyfriend steps back into the picture, Dunhuahg is forced to make some tough decisions. Running Through Beijing explores an underworld of constant thievery, hardcore porn, cops (both real and impostors), prison bribery, rampant drinking, and the smothering, bone-dry dust storms that blanket one of the world's largest cities. Like a literary Run Lola Run, it follows a hustling hero rushing at breakneck speed to stay just one step ahead. Full of well-drawn, authentic characters, Running Through Beijing is a masterful performance from a fresh Chinese voice.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781931883368
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
Chinese literature published in the United States has tended to focus on politics -- think the Cultural Revolution and dissidents -- but there's a whole other world of writing out there. It's punk, dealing with the harsh realities lived by the millions of city-dwellers struggling to get by in the grey economy. Dunhuahg, recently out of prison for selling fake IDs, has just enough money for a couple of meals. He also has no place to stay and no prospects for earning more yuan. When he happens to meet a pretty woman selling pirated DVDs, he falls into both an unexpected romance and a new business venture. But when her on-and-off boyfriend steps back into the picture, Dunhuahg is forced to make some tough decisions. Running Through Beijing explores an underworld of constant thievery, hardcore porn, cops (both real and impostors), prison bribery, rampant drinking, and the smothering, bone-dry dust storms that blanket one of the world's largest cities. Like a literary Run Lola Run, it follows a hustling hero rushing at breakneck speed to stay just one step ahead. Full of well-drawn, authentic characters, Running Through Beijing is a masterful performance from a fresh Chinese voice.
Rebel Men
Author: Pamela Hunt
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 988875405X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
Masculinity, fast-changing and regularly declared to be in the throes of crisis, is attracting more popular and scholarly debate in China than ever before. At the same time, Chinese literature since 1989 has been characterized as brimming with countercultural ‘attitude’. This book probes the link between literary rebellion and manhood in China, showing how, as male writers critique the outcomes of decades of market reform, they also ask the same question: how best to be a man in the new postsocialist order? In this first full-length discussion of masculinity in post-1989 Chinese literature, Pamela Hunt offers a detailed analysis of four contemporary authors in particular: Zhu Wen, Feng Tang, Xu Zechen, and Han Han. In a series of insightful readings, she explores how all four writers show the same preoccupation with the figure of the man on the edges of society. Drawing on longstanding Chinese and global models of maverick, as well as marginal masculinity, and responding to a desire to retain a measure of masculine authority, their characters all engage in forms of transgression that still rely heavily on heteronormative and patriarchal values. Rebel Men argues that masculinity, so often overlooked in literary analysis of contemporary China, continues to be renegotiated, debated, and agonized over, and is ultimately reconstructed as more powerful than before. ‘An exceptionally lucid, elegant study of masculinity in mainland Chinese fiction of the 1990s and 2000s. Both historically and theoretically informed, Rebel Men: Masculinity and Attitude in Postsocialist Chinese Literature offers a major new perspective on post-1989 Chinese counterculture.’ —Julia Lovell, Birkbeck, University of London
Publisher: Hong Kong University Press
ISBN: 988875405X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 164
Book Description
Masculinity, fast-changing and regularly declared to be in the throes of crisis, is attracting more popular and scholarly debate in China than ever before. At the same time, Chinese literature since 1989 has been characterized as brimming with countercultural ‘attitude’. This book probes the link between literary rebellion and manhood in China, showing how, as male writers critique the outcomes of decades of market reform, they also ask the same question: how best to be a man in the new postsocialist order? In this first full-length discussion of masculinity in post-1989 Chinese literature, Pamela Hunt offers a detailed analysis of four contemporary authors in particular: Zhu Wen, Feng Tang, Xu Zechen, and Han Han. In a series of insightful readings, she explores how all four writers show the same preoccupation with the figure of the man on the edges of society. Drawing on longstanding Chinese and global models of maverick, as well as marginal masculinity, and responding to a desire to retain a measure of masculine authority, their characters all engage in forms of transgression that still rely heavily on heteronormative and patriarchal values. Rebel Men argues that masculinity, so often overlooked in literary analysis of contemporary China, continues to be renegotiated, debated, and agonized over, and is ultimately reconstructed as more powerful than before. ‘An exceptionally lucid, elegant study of masculinity in mainland Chinese fiction of the 1990s and 2000s. Both historically and theoretically informed, Rebel Men: Masculinity and Attitude in Postsocialist Chinese Literature offers a major new perspective on post-1989 Chinese counterculture.’ —Julia Lovell, Birkbeck, University of London
Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature
Author: Li-hua Ying
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538130068
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 825
Book Description
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.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538130068
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 825
Book Description
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.
Shi Cheng
Author: Jie Chen
Publisher: Comma Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
**Selected as one of the Financial Times Best Books of 2012** 'Shi Cheng is a sort of mind map of both modern China, and also of what it’s like to be human.' - Asian Books Blog To the West, China may appear an unstoppable economic unity, a single high-performing whole, but for the inhabitants of this vast, complex and contradictory nation, it is the cities that hold the secret to such economic success. From the affluent, Westernised Hong Kong to the ice-cold Harbin in the north, from the Islamic quarters of Xi’an to the manufacturing powerhouse of Guangzhou - China’s cities thrum with promise and aspiration, playing host to the myriad hopes, frustrations and tensions that define China today. The stories in this anthology offer snapshots of ten such cities, taking in as many different types of inhabitant. Here we meet the lowly Beijing mechanic lovingly piecing together his first car from scrap metal, somnambulant commuters at a Nanjing bus-stop refusing to acknowledge the presence of a dead body just metres away, or Shenyang intellectuals conducting a letter-writing campaign on the moral welfare of their city. The challenges depicted in these stories are uniquely Chinese, but the energy and ingenuity with which their authors approach them is something readers everywhere can marvel at.
Publisher: Comma Press
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 222
Book Description
**Selected as one of the Financial Times Best Books of 2012** 'Shi Cheng is a sort of mind map of both modern China, and also of what it’s like to be human.' - Asian Books Blog To the West, China may appear an unstoppable economic unity, a single high-performing whole, but for the inhabitants of this vast, complex and contradictory nation, it is the cities that hold the secret to such economic success. From the affluent, Westernised Hong Kong to the ice-cold Harbin in the north, from the Islamic quarters of Xi’an to the manufacturing powerhouse of Guangzhou - China’s cities thrum with promise and aspiration, playing host to the myriad hopes, frustrations and tensions that define China today. The stories in this anthology offer snapshots of ten such cities, taking in as many different types of inhabitant. Here we meet the lowly Beijing mechanic lovingly piecing together his first car from scrap metal, somnambulant commuters at a Nanjing bus-stop refusing to acknowledge the presence of a dead body just metres away, or Shenyang intellectuals conducting a letter-writing campaign on the moral welfare of their city. The challenges depicted in these stories are uniquely Chinese, but the energy and ingenuity with which their authors approach them is something readers everywhere can marvel at.
By the River
Author: Charles A. Laughlin
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806156597
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The novella, as the editors of this volume explain, is in many ways the “native habitat” of modern Chinese literary production—the ideal fictional form for revealing the various facets of contemporary Chinese culture. The seven novellas collected here resoundingly support their claim. Featuring works by award winners and rising stars, women and men, By the River presents a confluence of some of the most compelling voices in China today. Together, their narratives reflect the rich diversity of Chinese experience in the modern era. These novellas are stories of coming of age in the countryside, of romance in the shadow of an electrical power station or in the watery landscape of a lost love, of a daughter’s epic journey to find her estranged mother. Whether telling of love or loss, of work or play along the river of experience, the narratives are replete with details that bring literary depth to the everyday—the mark of the novella. These details and the novellas into which they are woven defy simple answers to moral and political questions about modern life, leaving readers with the feeling that their world has been made larger, that they have seen through different eyes for a moment, if not forever. Reflecting modern Chinese life in the city and in the country, and among diverse regional cultures, By the River showcases the best of contemporary Chinese long-form fiction.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806156597
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 351
Book Description
The novella, as the editors of this volume explain, is in many ways the “native habitat” of modern Chinese literary production—the ideal fictional form for revealing the various facets of contemporary Chinese culture. The seven novellas collected here resoundingly support their claim. Featuring works by award winners and rising stars, women and men, By the River presents a confluence of some of the most compelling voices in China today. Together, their narratives reflect the rich diversity of Chinese experience in the modern era. These novellas are stories of coming of age in the countryside, of romance in the shadow of an electrical power station or in the watery landscape of a lost love, of a daughter’s epic journey to find her estranged mother. Whether telling of love or loss, of work or play along the river of experience, the narratives are replete with details that bring literary depth to the everyday—the mark of the novella. These details and the novellas into which they are woven defy simple answers to moral and political questions about modern life, leaving readers with the feeling that their world has been made larger, that they have seen through different eyes for a moment, if not forever. Reflecting modern Chinese life in the city and in the country, and among diverse regional cultures, By the River showcases the best of contemporary Chinese long-form fiction.
Freeman's: The Future of New Writing
Author: John Freeman
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802188834
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
A diverse anthology of poetry, fiction and essays from the most exciting writers around the world in this “fresh, provocative, engrossing” literary journal (BBC.com). The literary anthology Freeman’s, created by writer, critic, and former Granta editor John Freeman, has quickly gained an international following with wide acclaim. It has been called “bold [and] searching” by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and “impressively diverse” by O Magazine. This issue introduces a list of more than twenty-five poets, essayists, novelists, and short story writers from around the world who are shaping contemporary literature and will continue to impact it in years to come. Drawing on recommendations from book editors, critics, translators, and authors from across the globe, Freeman’s: The Future of New Writing includes pieces from writers aged twenty-five to seventy, from almost twenty countries and writing in almost as many languages. This will be a new kind of list, and an aesthetic manifesto for our times. Against a climate of nationalism and siloed thinking, this special issue celebrates a global view of where writing is going next. “The oldest is 70. The youngest, 26. In between, the best list of this kind I have ever seen.”—Marlon James
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802188834
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 268
Book Description
A diverse anthology of poetry, fiction and essays from the most exciting writers around the world in this “fresh, provocative, engrossing” literary journal (BBC.com). The literary anthology Freeman’s, created by writer, critic, and former Granta editor John Freeman, has quickly gained an international following with wide acclaim. It has been called “bold [and] searching” by the Minneapolis Star-Tribune and “impressively diverse” by O Magazine. This issue introduces a list of more than twenty-five poets, essayists, novelists, and short story writers from around the world who are shaping contemporary literature and will continue to impact it in years to come. Drawing on recommendations from book editors, critics, translators, and authors from across the globe, Freeman’s: The Future of New Writing includes pieces from writers aged twenty-five to seventy, from almost twenty countries and writing in almost as many languages. This will be a new kind of list, and an aesthetic manifesto for our times. Against a climate of nationalism and siloed thinking, this special issue celebrates a global view of where writing is going next. “The oldest is 70. The youngest, 26. In between, the best list of this kind I have ever seen.”—Marlon James
Routledge Companion to Ba Jin
Author: Chen Chang
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000956857
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
Exploring the creations of Ba Jin (1904–2005), one of the most significant writers in modern China, this edited volume offers in-depth discussions of the writer and his works from a global perspective to initiate and advance dialogues between the Chinese- and English- speaking scholarly communities. The four sections of the book provide readers with a detailed biography and an overview of research on Ba Jin since the 1980s to reflect on the academic achievements of several generations in China. In addition, it includes a selected collection of articles from Korean, German, and French scholars. These articles cover Ba Jin’s life thoughts, personality, literary creation, editing, publishing, and other aspects of the research. This companion aims to provide an alternative lens for Chinese literature studies in a global context. It will be an essential read to students and scholars of East Asian studies, Chinese studies, and those interested in modern Chinese literature.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000956857
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 352
Book Description
Exploring the creations of Ba Jin (1904–2005), one of the most significant writers in modern China, this edited volume offers in-depth discussions of the writer and his works from a global perspective to initiate and advance dialogues between the Chinese- and English- speaking scholarly communities. The four sections of the book provide readers with a detailed biography and an overview of research on Ba Jin since the 1980s to reflect on the academic achievements of several generations in China. In addition, it includes a selected collection of articles from Korean, German, and French scholars. These articles cover Ba Jin’s life thoughts, personality, literary creation, editing, publishing, and other aspects of the research. This companion aims to provide an alternative lens for Chinese literature studies in a global context. It will be an essential read to students and scholars of East Asian studies, Chinese studies, and those interested in modern Chinese literature.
Research Study on Festival and Events
Author: Josipa Mijoč
Publisher: Andizet - Institute for Scientific and Art Research in Creative Industry
ISBN: 9532532072
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 116
Book Description
After three successful research studies and three scientific books, the EU-China International Literary Festival international project team focused on testing and applying the international festival research methodology. Based on previous research studies, reports and scientific books, the authors had sufficient knowledge of the methodological guidelines for conducting demanding multilingual and cross-cultural research. The research and methodological definition of the scientific book is the EU-China literary festival conceived as the interaction of European and Chinese authors with Chinese audiences and the promotion of European culture in Chinese cities. This book focuses on the analysis of the 4th EU-China International Literary Festival organised by the Delegation of the European Union to China. The goal of the Festival is to bring distant cultures closer by virtue of literature as a medium, and the Festival has been held twice a year in China since 2017. The audience could attend Festival events either at the venue (n = 6,914) or online (n = 377,098). The number of online attendees far exceeded the number of visitors who attended live events, which strongly popularised EU-China cooperation, cross-cultural differences, new media monitoring literary events, literature itself and the authors. The research methodology was used to measure the views of three groups of stakeholders in the EU-China International Literary Festival (n = 70), i.e. 1. Festival visitors, 2. European authors (international participants), and 3. Chinese authors (national participants). By analysing the views of the three groups of respondents, the book analyses the measure of both the success of the EU-China International Literary Festival and the level of satisfaction with the Festival. Comparison and identification of similarities and differences among the three groups of respondents is one of the research goals. Based on a large number of media releases and live streamings, the Festival can be seen as a highly successful promotional product where the culture of the European Union was presented to the Chinese visitors. In addition to the research methodology, the scientific book also provides the design of research procedures applied in multilingual research by international research teams. An enviable longitudinal series of data collected from the three groups of stakeholders was created by the fourth measurement of Festival success. The tested international festival research methodology can be used by future researchers of festival phenomena for developing an instrument for gathering the views of festival participants (authors, visitors and organisers) of literary and all other related festivals. The efforts of this research study are ultimately aimed at a systematic increase in the quality of festivals, ensuring continued funding, and laying the groundwork for related festivals funded by the EU Delegation to China.
Publisher: Andizet - Institute for Scientific and Art Research in Creative Industry
ISBN: 9532532072
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 116
Book Description
After three successful research studies and three scientific books, the EU-China International Literary Festival international project team focused on testing and applying the international festival research methodology. Based on previous research studies, reports and scientific books, the authors had sufficient knowledge of the methodological guidelines for conducting demanding multilingual and cross-cultural research. The research and methodological definition of the scientific book is the EU-China literary festival conceived as the interaction of European and Chinese authors with Chinese audiences and the promotion of European culture in Chinese cities. This book focuses on the analysis of the 4th EU-China International Literary Festival organised by the Delegation of the European Union to China. The goal of the Festival is to bring distant cultures closer by virtue of literature as a medium, and the Festival has been held twice a year in China since 2017. The audience could attend Festival events either at the venue (n = 6,914) or online (n = 377,098). The number of online attendees far exceeded the number of visitors who attended live events, which strongly popularised EU-China cooperation, cross-cultural differences, new media monitoring literary events, literature itself and the authors. The research methodology was used to measure the views of three groups of stakeholders in the EU-China International Literary Festival (n = 70), i.e. 1. Festival visitors, 2. European authors (international participants), and 3. Chinese authors (national participants). By analysing the views of the three groups of respondents, the book analyses the measure of both the success of the EU-China International Literary Festival and the level of satisfaction with the Festival. Comparison and identification of similarities and differences among the three groups of respondents is one of the research goals. Based on a large number of media releases and live streamings, the Festival can be seen as a highly successful promotional product where the culture of the European Union was presented to the Chinese visitors. In addition to the research methodology, the scientific book also provides the design of research procedures applied in multilingual research by international research teams. An enviable longitudinal series of data collected from the three groups of stakeholders was created by the fourth measurement of Festival success. The tested international festival research methodology can be used by future researchers of festival phenomena for developing an instrument for gathering the views of festival participants (authors, visitors and organisers) of literary and all other related festivals. The efforts of this research study are ultimately aimed at a systematic increase in the quality of festivals, ensuring continued funding, and laying the groundwork for related festivals funded by the EU Delegation to China.
Chutzpah!
Author: Ou Ning
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806153059
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
To Westerners China has often seemed a monolith, speaking with one voice—whether that of an ancient dynasty, a socialist state, or an economic powerhouse. Chutzpah! New Voices from China shatters this illusion, giving Western readers a rare chance to listen to the brilliant polyphony of Chinese fiction today. Here, in the realms of realism and fantasy, and portraying worlds lyrical, gritty, or wildly avant-garde, sixteen selections—three of which are nonfiction—by up-and-coming Chinese writers take readers from the suburbs of Nanjing to the mountains of Xinjiang Province, from London’s Chinatown to a universe seemingly sprung from a video game. In these stories one may encounter a sweet, lonely fabric store owner or a lesbian housecleaner, a posse of shit-talking vo-tech students or a human hive-mind. A jeep-driving swordsman girds himself for battle by reading Borges and Nabokov. A Beijing-raised Kazakh boy hunts for his lost heritage. A teenager plots revenge on the bureaucrat responsible for demolishing his home. A starving child falls in love with a water spirit. These stories, collected by Ou Ning and Austin Woerner, and offered in English by leading translators of Chinese, travel the breadth and depth of China’s remarkable literary landscape. Drawn from the pages of Chutzpah!, one of China’s most innovative literary magazines, this anthology bids farewell to the tired tropes of moonlight and peach blossoms, goodbye to the constraints of socialist realism. In their place it introduces us to the imaginative power, boundless creativity, and kaleidoscopic diversity of a new generation of Chinese fiction.
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806153059
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 417
Book Description
To Westerners China has often seemed a monolith, speaking with one voice—whether that of an ancient dynasty, a socialist state, or an economic powerhouse. Chutzpah! New Voices from China shatters this illusion, giving Western readers a rare chance to listen to the brilliant polyphony of Chinese fiction today. Here, in the realms of realism and fantasy, and portraying worlds lyrical, gritty, or wildly avant-garde, sixteen selections—three of which are nonfiction—by up-and-coming Chinese writers take readers from the suburbs of Nanjing to the mountains of Xinjiang Province, from London’s Chinatown to a universe seemingly sprung from a video game. In these stories one may encounter a sweet, lonely fabric store owner or a lesbian housecleaner, a posse of shit-talking vo-tech students or a human hive-mind. A jeep-driving swordsman girds himself for battle by reading Borges and Nabokov. A Beijing-raised Kazakh boy hunts for his lost heritage. A teenager plots revenge on the bureaucrat responsible for demolishing his home. A starving child falls in love with a water spirit. These stories, collected by Ou Ning and Austin Woerner, and offered in English by leading translators of Chinese, travel the breadth and depth of China’s remarkable literary landscape. Drawn from the pages of Chutzpah!, one of China’s most innovative literary magazines, this anthology bids farewell to the tired tropes of moonlight and peach blossoms, goodbye to the constraints of socialist realism. In their place it introduces us to the imaginative power, boundless creativity, and kaleidoscopic diversity of a new generation of Chinese fiction.