Culture Chase: 10 Contemporary Chinese literature you cannot miss

Yijie Zhang 26 Jun 2015 updated the 6 October 2015 à 23:02

1/10
Red Sorghum by Mo Yan
As the first Nobel Literature Prize winner who resided in Mainland China, Mo Yan is one of the best known contemporary Chinese authors, and Red Sorghum is his best known work. Characterized by his unique style of gritty satirical realism, the plot revolves around the struggles of three generations of a family in Shandong - from making sorghum wine to defending the country in the Second Sino-Japanese war.
2/10
Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang
If Mo Yan's raw social critique is not for you, then you might want to try Eileen Chang. It's a starkly contrasting style but her romanticized notions of love and longing has nevertheless captured public interest for generations. With powerful lyricism and keen awareness of social nuances, Chang's novel perfectly captures the lives of women trapped between modernity and the conservatism of old world China.
3/10
Border Town by Shen Congwen
A highly influential modern writer, Shen Congwen's writing is unusually apolitical (given his involvement in the Chinese revolution) and is firmly rooted in the soils of his native Hunan region in China. The novel, Border Town, covers a coming of age story about a country girl named Cuicui. Shen's unique integration of regional dialect with traditional Chinese and his description of the Chinese countryside during the revolution continues to haunt us long after the novel ends.
4/10
Diary of a Madman by Lu Xun
As one of the first and most famous texts written in modern vernacular Chinese, Diary of a Madman became one of the key novels in propelling the New Culture Movement. The movement built up a revolt against traditional Confucianism and encouraged gravitation towards western Enlightenment values. It's no wonder, though, seeing that Lu Xun does an excellent job in bringing to life a paranoid madman who believes his fellow villagers to be potential cannibals.
5/10
Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke
So confrontational and incisive that the text was banned in China, Yan's Dream of Ding Village details the shocking everyday realities of AIDS sufferers in a village in rural Henan, who receive next to no outside or government assistance. Satirical and dark, the novel was shortlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and received widespread acclaim outside China, where it was banned quickly after the first edition was published.
6/10
Bamboo Shoots After the Rain by various authors
This remarkable anthology features short stories by 14 Taiwanese women writers, all having played significant roles in propelling literary movements. Spanning a variety of topics, the stories are rich and vivid descriptions of the womens' lives in a rapidly modernizing Taiwan. The anthology also includes the famous short story of the same name by Lin Hai-yin, which details the pain and inconveniences a woman was put through in feudalistic China.
Edited by Ann C. Carver & Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang
7/10
Big Breasts and Wide Hips by Mo Yan
Awarded the Dajia Honghe Literature Prize in 1997, this novel by Mo Yan follows the lives of a mother with eight daughters and a son from the Sino-Japanese war to the Cultural Revolution. It's a terse yet insightful history of China that's going through one of its most tumultuous periods. We think that Mo does an excellent job of revealing the sociopolitical atmosphere of the time through his descriptions of the changes a family experiences.
8/10
Rickshaw by Lao She
Known for his extensive use of Beijing dialects, Lao She is one of China's most prominent dramatists and novelists, and many of his works have been made into film outside his country. Also named Camel Xiangzi, this wildly popular novel of his is about the tragic life of a fictional rickshaw puller in Beijing and the choices he is forced to make. As always, Lao She is amazing in bringing his native city to life, in all its beauty, chaos, and decadence.
9/10
Lust, Caution by Eileen Chang
Set in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation in World War II, the acclaimed novella took Chang more than 20 years to complete. A beautiful student and former actress, Wong Chia Chi, agrees to help assasinate a prominent Japanese agent and defector, Yee. She takes on an alias to befriend Yee's wife, but falls in love with Yee instead. Hauntingly romantic and tragic, Chang takes on the heavy subject with amazing poise and literary talent.
10/10
The True Story of Ah Q by Lu Xun
In the first chapter, Lu Xun immediately states that he is unable to ascertain Ah Q's real name, thereby setting a tone of anonymity for the rest of the novel. An unemployed peasant with little eduation, Ah Q has become synonymous with optimism to the point of delusion and in the face of defeat and humiliation. Meant to be a critic of the Chinese national character in his time, Lu Xun also describes him as a bully to those under him and fearful of those above.

Think you know your Chinese? Well, why not take it up a notch as you join us in journeying through these modern classics, masterfully executed by some of the brightest minds around.

If you have at all forayed into Chinese literature, then staple classics like Journey to the West and Dream of the Red Chamber will not be unfamiliar to you. Chinese literature has a long and somewhat tumultuous history, but despite Emperor Qin’s infamous burning of books and burying scholars alive, and Mao’s imprisonment of prominent intellectuals, these gems of wisdom by amazing minds have nonetheless survived.

But while Journey to the West has successfully, well, gone West, many other stunning modern novels are less well-known and have been lost in translation. Compared to the intriguing world of imperial China described in the classics well-known to Western audiences, modern Chinese literature lets us glimpse into the country’s history thereafter: the turbulent Cultural Revolution, Mao’s cult of personality, and modern societal trends which gravitate towards excesses and away from genuine human interaction.

So ditch the romanticized old world China and join us as we plunge into 10 of our favourite contemporary Chinese classics offered in English translation. It’s gritty and raw, but we guarantee that it’s as intriguing as intriguing can be.

Yijie Zhang

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Culture Chase: 10 Contemporary Chinese literature you cannot miss

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