Zhongguo wenxue zhong de etuobang: Zhongguo shijiao haishi pushi shijiao?
| Title in English | Dystopia in Chinese Literature: China-exclusive, or universal? |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| Citation | |
| Description | In this paper, I address a problem that has been discussed for decades, especially after the publication of C. T. Hsia’s famous appendix to his book A History of Modern Chinese Fiction, titled Obsession with China (1971). C. T. Hsia’s diagnosis of modern Chinese literature presents its writers as not able to treat various problem as universal, human problems, and addressing them as specific Chinese problems instead. The paper’s focus is Yan Ge’s novel Strange Beasts of China. Yan Ge’s novel presents a complex dystopic vision, opening a wide space for interpretation. “China problem” is surely a possible reading. However, the complexity of the novel does not allow the reader to settle for this interpretation easily and opens a space to ask the questions that form the core of my paper: What exactly are the factors that make us read a particular dystopia as Chinese dystopia (and not universal one)? And what factors, on the other hand, break these confines and allow a Chinese author to still write about China, while presenting Chinese problems as universal and shared by humankind? |