Chinese Literature in the Second Half of a Modern Century

"... an important contribution to the study of recent Chinese literature." — Choice

"This fine, scholarly survey of Chinese literature since 1949... discusses such trends as modernism, nativism, realism, root-seeking and 'scar' literature, 'misty' poets, and political, feminist, and societal issues in modern Chinese literature." —Library Journal

This volume is a 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 endeavors, 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.

Pang-yuan Chi was born in Manchuria and came to Taiwan in 1947; she is Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature at National Taiwan University, and Editor-in-Chief of The Chinese PEN Quarterly. She has been a Fulbright Scholar at Indiana University and a Visiting Scholar at the Freie Universitat, Berlin. Her works include An Anthology of Contemporary Literature, Qiannian zhilei (Tears of a Thousand Years) and Wu jianjian sanle de shihou (When the fog is clearing up).

David Der-wei Wang received his Ph.D. degree in Comparative Literature from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has taught at National Taiwan University and Harvard University and is now Professor of Chinese Literature and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Columbia University. His recent publications include Fictional Realism in 20th Century China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen, Xiaoshuo zhongguo (Narrating China, Ruhexiandai, Zeyang wenxue (The Making of the Modern, the Making of a Literature), and Fin-de-siecle Splendor: Repressed Modernities of Late Qing Fiction, 1849-1911.