This volume aims at a preliminary survey of modern Chinese literature in the second half of the twentieth century. It has three goals: (1) to introduce figures, works, movements, and debates that constitute the dynamics of Chinese literature from 1949 to the end of the century (2) to depict the enunciative endeavours, ranging from ideological treatises to avant-garde experiments, that inform the polyphonic discourse of Chinese cultural politics (3) to observe the historical factors that enacted the interplay of literary (post) modernities across the Chinese communities in the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas.
The existing paradigm of modern Chinese literary studies treats the May Fourth movement as the harbinger of literary modernisation and 1949, the year of the Chinese communist seizure of mainland China, as the point where this modernity project came to an abrupt end. Beyond 1949, Chinese literature is said to have been conditioned by political antagonisms and historical turmoil, so much so that it falls short of the formal and conceptual rigor that allegedly characterises its predecessors. Such a scenario makes 1949 the landmark of the great divide" and treats modern Chinese literary development like two discrete segments of the pre-49 era versus the post-49 era. This is an ill-informed notion. Although Chinese literature since 1949 has suffered from numerous political interventions, as most poignantly attested to by the atrocities of the Great Cultural Revolution, Chinese writers have never ceased to churn out strong works whenever they have been given a chance. Meanwhile, literature in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas communities have contributed some of the most stimulating dimensions to the corpus of Chinese literature since the mid-century.
When the age of "post"isms – postmodernism, postcolonialism, post-Maoism, post-Martial-Lawism, etc. – has come to the end, this volume argues that one "post-" phenomenon, and arguably a most challenging one – the post-1949 mutations among Chinese literary communities – should not be overlooked. With fifteen essays contributed by scholars from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and overseas, this volume argues that Chinese literature since 1949 has demonstrated far more vitality and diversity than informed by historical accounts. Although confronted with endless political interventions, literature of these five decades has continued to rejuvenate itself, each time fitted out with more sophisticated tactics of resistance. More important, thanks ironically to the historical fact of a fragmented China, writers from different communities have been compelled to write about their Chinese experience in a way more polemical than ever before. So as the modern century comes to its end, one can argue that Chinese literature of the past five decades rivals or even surpasses the achievement of the previous half-century.
The first attempt of its own kind, this book features renowned scholars from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other overseas Chinese communities such as Zaifu Liu, William Tay, and Pang-yuan Chi. The fifteen essays in this volume represent fifteen entry points to the complex network of Chinese literature since 1949. Instead of formulating the issues and other movements into a singular progressive line, these essays cross-reference each other in light of different governmental policies, communal tastes, and artistic trends. Put together, they bring forward a complex chronology in correspondence to multifaceted Chinese reality.