Literature

The write stuff

By Yang Guang (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-06-01 08:21

Top: The old Beijing Library, built in 1931 facing the Beihai Park, attracts many readers in the 1980s. Above: Famous Chinese writers. Top: Jiang Qisheng / for China Daily; Above: Photos Provided to China Daily

The image of a long queue outside the small campus bookstore lingers in the memory of writer Zhao Lihong. He was a student at Shanghai-based East China Normal University from 1977 to 1981 and Chinese literature was his major. "Students and faculty would line up each morning for new books, even before the bookstore started business," Zhao, 60, recalls. "Books were always in short supply."

In the wake of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) during which China was cut off from the Western world and its traditional culture was strongly criticized, a new generation craved for "new enlightenment", in the same way an earlier generation searched for new ideas after the May Fourth Movement in 1919.

Literature was the most powerful driving force of this new era and a slew of Western works - ranging from the early 19th century's symbolism to the late 20th century's post-modernism - were translated, printed and quickly sold out. Reprints were rushed to satisfy the insatiable demand.

Throughout the 1980s, there was a nationwide fervor for reading and Chinese literature entered a golden age. Zhao calls the period a "reading carnival".

The older generation of authors who were forced to give up writing during the "cultural revolution" took up their pens again and new writers, who came of age during the political turmoil, also emerged.

Chen Sihe, professor of Chinese literature with Shanghai's Fudan University, and Hong Zicheng, professor of Chinese literature with Peking University, say the most significant characteristic of 1980s literature was social relevance, which came in the form of "Scar" and "Root-seeking" movements.

"Scar" literature got its name from Scar, a short story published in 1978 by Lu Xinhua, then a freshman at Fudan University. This movement portrayed the sufferings of cadres, intellectuals, and educated urban youth during the "cultural revolution".

"Root-seeking" literature came from The Root of Literature, an essay by writer Han Shaogong, who proposed that writing should be deeply rooted in the soil of national culture.

Chen says cultural roots awareness was prompted by translated literature, such as Chinghiz Aitmatov's works based on Russian folklore, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's stories inspired by Latin American history and Kawabata Yasunari's works with Japanese roots.

At the end of the 1980s, under Western influence, avant-garde novels also rose in popularity. Self-consciousness, imagination, death, sex and violence were common themes.

Hong Zhigang, professor of Chinese literature with Guangzhou-based Jinan University, highlights the dual function of aesthetics and social commentary in the 1980s and Chen Rong's novella At Middle Age, about a physician's struggle to balance her career and family life.

"Everybody read it and watched the film adaptation," Hong says. "It even prompted the government to emphasize the respect of knowledge and talent."

In the 1990s, economic development was the central issue and China's new market economy forced changes in the production, distribution and evaluation of new books.

There was a drop in "professional" writers, those who were provided with a stable life by national and provincial writers' associations. Financial assistance to literary journals and publishing houses was reduced and a royalty system was implemented.

These policy changes caused authors to direct their attention to a new book-buying market. The "reading carnival" closed. Critics lamented that quality literature was marginalized, or even dead.

The most obvious manifestation of this commercial shift was seen in the works of Wang Shuo. Labeled a "hooligan writer", Wang's trademark style satires the rebellious and culturally confused "troublemakers" growing up during the "cultural revolution", and uses the Beijing dialect and street language. Wang rose to fame through his popular stories of love and crime, and then turned to writing scripts for films and television soap operas.

The literary scene during this decade, nonetheless, was far from bleak, both in terms of quantity and quality. In the 1980s, only dozens of new novels were published each year, but by 2000, more than 1,000 new works had been delivered to bookstores. Among these contemporary classics were White Deer Plain by Chen Zhongshi, A Dictionary of Maqiao by Han Shaogong, and The Song of Everlasting Sorrow by Wang Anyi.

According to Bai Ye, researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the literature movement changed each decade: In the 1980s it steered toward political themes; in the 1990s it was market-oriented; and over the past 10 years it followed new media trends.

As the Internet's popularity soared, there was initial concern that the younger generation's reading habits and interest in literature would be ruined. But quite the opposite occurred and the World Wide Web breathed new life into the industry.

The Internet provided infinite space for writers, however obscure, to publish their works for free. The easier access to publication triggered a boom in writing and the "reading carnival" of the 1980s evolved into a "writing carnival".

Shanda Literature, one of the country's largest literature websites, has a regular writer base of more than 700,000. Many popular online writers managed to have their works published as books.

But the prosperity of online writing did not mean a decline in traditional book writing. Last year more than 3,000 new novels were published.

In recent times new genres have been introduced, including Guo Jingming's teen romance Cry Me a Sad River, Li Ke's workplace story The Promotion Story of Du Lala, Wang Xiaofang's officialdom writing Director of the Office in Beijing and Tianxia Bachang's suspense series Ghost Blows out the Light.

And there has also been controversy. In 2009, the reprint of Jia Pingwa's Ruined Capital made a major stir. The book, which won France's Femina Prize in 1997, emerged from underground circulation for the first time in 16 years, after its ban for its "vulgar style and pornographic descriptions".

"The reprint reflects China's increasing progress and tolerance," says Chen Xiaoming, professor of Chinese literature with Peking University. "Literary evaluation has finally shifted from a political and moral orientation to literary merit per se."

(China Daily 06/01/2011 page38)