Reading Chinese Contemporary Fiction (in English translation!)

Several years ago, when I lived in Miami, the annual Miami Book Fair International hosted a clutch of contemporary novelists from the mainland of China. Their books, their stories, and their difficulties in getting published made an indelible impression on me.

But that was not my first encounter with their number. My first purchase of a contemporary work of fiction by a Chinese writer occurred some years earlier when, at another MBFI event, I attended the talk by Da Chen who was promoting his novel Brothers, an allegorical novel of two brothers representing different political aspects of China. This was a special encounter for me because Da signed my purchase in calligraphy. I have a number of autographed books from having worked to help put on the book fair for several years, but this signing is special for its beauty alone.

Recently, I just treated myself to a collection of Thrift Books "steals," acquiring novels by many Chinese authors, some of whose works I have. But I collected some new-to-me authors as well.

I'll mention only one title in this post because I'm anxious to let others talk about their ventures into contemporary Chinese literature. The book is also titled Brothers by Yu Hua, the author of To Live. You can watch the movie of To Live with English subtitles here:
"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB7HYhUpDz8"
From the jacket blurb, I expect this to be a Dickensian novel, full of rich life, highly individualized characters, and covering the landscape of incident and emotion. A best seller in China where it was published in two volumes as Xong Di in 2005, 2006, in spite of upsetting the authorities, I hope it reaches a wide audience in the US where it is available in several editions. Mine is the 641 pp(!) Pantheon.

I hope to post more in this thread about the rest of my collection, but I'd like to know who your favorite contemporary Chinese writers/novels are. Expand the discussion to include Malaysian writers, too. Other Asian Pacific writers are fine. I'd rather not use this thread to talk about Japanese contemporary writers because several are well established in the American public ken.

Looking forward to hearing your stories about how you got "turned onto" writers from China. Why you like them. What's the best book by them. Let's celebrate this still new wave of literature from the Far East.

Close but not quite; I've been investigating Japanese literature, trying to sort out the classics canon and must-reads.

Then I guess we'll open the floor to Japanese writers! It was a silly and artificial exclusion.

Recently thoroughly enjoyed The Housekeeper and the Professor by new Japanese writer to appear in English translation, Yoko Ogawa. Contemporary, modern, and not deconstructed. I'd call her writing style a combination of spare and serene, but not minimalist. What intrigued me in the aftertaste of this reading is how "American" the novel seemed. Is the book an indication of the increasing westernization of Japanese culture -- is it all just "pop" now? The main theme: What constitutes a family? Also a very popular theme in American lit, is echoed in this gentle novel about ordinarily extraordinary people. Kent Haruf immediately comes to mind as an American parallel. And Clare Morrall as an English one.

Hope others will chime in.

Finished The Moon Opera, a Chinese novella so exquisitely constructed as to be a tragic opera in its own right. The author, Bi Feiyu (this is his debut as a novelist) is also a screenwriter, and I confess, this story would translate beautifully into film. It is a dramatic tale that builds into a crescendo about a diva, Xiao Yanqiu, of the Beijing Opera, determined but conflicted as she attempts to recreate her role from 20 years ago in the classic Chinese opera, Flying To the Moon, as the quintessential female, Ching'e, acting in an art form that is fading from the cultural patina of the Chinese people at an unspecified time in the second half of the 20th C. The essence of Ching'e is so powerful that the very beings of her most famous portrayors are subsumed into the role.

If you have ever been lucky enough to see Farewell My Concubine on the big screen, the tension, conflicts, and emotional range of that film about two performers in the Beijing Opera in the early 20th C. will resonate with you as you read the story.

I see that Wang Yabin has created a modern Chinese dance based on the book. See more about that here:
http://www.codadancefest.no/en/2017/program/the-moon-opera

>2 Cecrow:, >3 Limelite:

If you need any help with Japanese literature feel free to ask me questions. It's my passion and what I primarily read. You can see my Japanese literature thread here. While I don't contribute to my own threads as much these days on LT since I haven't really been reading, I do still enjoy discussing my favorite literature.

>4 lilisin:, thanks, I've followed your thread before and I'm a member of that group, I'll have another look. A resource I've been using recently is the general Japanese literature topic on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_literature

I've not read much yet, just compiling a list of who I should be looking into.

>4 lilisin:
Thanks -- will check it out as I am also a fan of contemporary and modern classical Japanese lit.

Hope you'll stick around and add to our discussion about your forays into other Asian Pacific writers.

Bent the rules a little more. . .to include Chinese contemporary nonfiction, too! This morning I picked up from my TBR pile Li Cunxin's memoir, Mao's Last Dancer. As ghastly. lethal, and destructive an episode in 20th C. Chinese history as the Cultural Revolution was, contemporary Chinese fiction seems to have been totally derived from that gigantic upheaval. And it is only in the last 25 years that the Chinese and the world have gained a cultural Renaissance of Chinese writing, film, and performing and fine arts spawned from the corpses of tens of millions of its citizens obliterated in the middle of the 20th C.

Li is a retired ballet principal dancer (among other positions in dance) who was born and grew up during that Revolution in a family of seven brothers. He now lives with his family in Australia. The starvation, poverty, and privation he experienced would seem to doom any child who aspired beyond peasant labor at that time. Yet the early parts of this memoir make clear that in spite of bodily and material suffering, his family was strengthened by pride and deep devotion to their common good as they fought to survive on a commune where life gave no hint of what was to come for Cunxin.

There are lives lived and books about them during the Mao era that are heroic in the undiluted and meaningful sense of the word, and that stagger belief and definitions of courage. This is one of them.

Starred this thread - it'll be great to see Chinese and Japanese literature being discussed by enthusiasts. I expect to pick up a lot of recommendations for reading (and viewing, as I'm a fan of Chinese and Japanese cinema) here and in the other threads mentioned!

I've recently read Akutagawa's Rashomon and Other Stories, which had me looking around for other Japanese classics. I'm particularly interested in those which tap into Japanese history, legends and myths. So far on my watch list I have these:

Tales of Moonlight and Rain - Akinara Ueda
Kokoro - Natsume Soseki
The Woman in the Dunes - Kobo Abe
Snow Country - Yasunari Kawabata
Japanese Fairy Tales - Yei Theodora Ozaki
The Sea of Fertility - Yukio Mishima

I have Musashi by Eiji Yoshikawa on my shelf, which appears to be light historical fiction and not really classic literature. I've also read a bit of Murakami and plan to read more, on the modern front (the only Japanese author most people can name, lol).

>7 floremolla:
Welcome! Look forward to reading your comments and feel sure you'll maintain that book-buying addiction while you stick around -- and probably contribute to ours!

>8 Cecrow:
Lucky you! I think Snow Country is one of the most heart-breakingly beautiful novels I've ever read. Exquisite seems to describe it best.

I read Kokoro this year (part of my ROOT goal), and reviewed it here:
https://www.librarything.com/work/11734/edit/134755127

You might enjoy reading (if you haven't) The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, who is apparently one of the brighter lights on the current scene of Japanese lit. Reviewed it here:
https://www.librarything.com/work/5263983/edit/141251318

Thanks for the titles!

What little Japanese fiction I have read (in translation) I have loved. I recently read The Old Capital by the writer of Snow Country mentioned above, it was so good and so sad. I also read an English version of the Chushungura story (sp? the 47 ronin story is another expression for it) that I am not sure if it was a translation of a Japanese work or an actual originally-English novel, because I loaned out the book and it never came back. Anyhow, I really loved it too.

I do not think I have ever read any Chinese fiction and am also starring this thread for recommendations. Thanks for starting this thread!

>10 anna_in_pdx:
Very glad you're here -- more=merrier!

If you're looking for a title to get you started with Chinese fiction, it might be that reading a Chinese classic rather than a contemporary work is the way to go. I only say that because ALL contemporary Chinese writing is heavily influenced by the Cultural Revolution. And Chinese culture is far more than that episode in its history. But it's an event whose influence is hard to escape.

I got started with Dream of the Red Chamber many years ago and since that encounter have been fascinated by Chinese literature. Admittedly, it's a big bite to start with and not for all. So, another direction to go might be a memoir/autobiography of a living Chinese writer, which will make you feel directly and personally connected to the Chinese gestalt. For me, that memoir would be Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. Yes, it is the personal experience of a woman victimized by the Cultural Revolution. Farewell My Concubine (the novel) by Lillian Lee (aka Li Bai) covers the period from 1930-1980 China, broadening the window within the Maoist/Communist era. It's beautiful, and sad, and heroic.

Reading along in Cunxin's memoir. He has left village commune life and innocent naivete behind for Beijing and Mdme Mao's Dance Academy where his first lessons in ballet take place. Homesickness, and (as it turns out) motion sickness make his life miserable. But it's apparent that the state is not only training the select with the best instructors possible, but are also giving them an academic foundation. All of it larded heavily with Maoist propaganda.

The facilities at the school are primitive, primarily the plumbing, which is undeniably ghastly, inadequate, and semi functional. When it's non-functional, a hole in the floor is the toilet.

But food is plentiful and nutritious. All the arts students are housed in the school compound but segregated according to discipline. Yet, Cunxin finds opportunities to meet musicians and others and make friends in spite of the language barriers that exist when students come from all parts of the multi-dialect country.

I'm at the point in his story when he's beginning to catch the notice of his teachers and is being singled out to perform before Mdme Mao when she visits. Not quite at the half-way point.

Have to say, Cunxin paints a vivid picture in detail of what it was like to live during the Cultural Revoution. China at that time was no workers' paradise. Has it ever been in the Communist era? The feeling of deprivation combined with national pride and a driving need to make their country a first world power is evident. He also illustrates the close and binding ties of Chinese families. The people so far seem loving, moral, hard-working, and self-aware enough to be leery of the Maoist Perfect Society Fantasy while maintaining a demeanor of obedience and fealty to their god, Mao.

Finished Li Cunxin's remarkable autobiography and recommend it without reservation to anyone curious about peasants' living conditions during the Cultural Revolution, China's education and exploitation of talented students, and the courageous persistence by one man in pursuit of artistic and personal freedom.

My review here: https://www.librarything.com/work/71622/edit/143755707

For now, I'm reading a novel by English author, Elizabeth Taylor. Next up in my Chinese literary pursuits? I think perhaps Yu Hua's novel about a black sheep, or Chinese Job, To Live (Touchstone confusion).

I have a couple of anthologies of Chinese poetry, both quite dated now.

THE WHITE PONY (1960; edited by Robert Payne)
ONE HUNDRED POEMS FROM THE CHINESE (New Directions Press; 1970; translated by Kenneth Rexroth)

Can't vouch for either, I've barely peeked at them.

>14 CliffBurns:

As someone born without the poetry gene, I doubt I'd even attempt Chinese poetry since Western same is too often obscure to me. But out of curiosity, why not let a book fall open and read what turns up on the random page and tell us what you think?

I think I read somewhere that poetry gives us excellent insights into a nation's soul.

That's probably why I picked up the books in the first place.

Once I get around to browsing them, I'll let you know...

I'm deeply into War Trash by well known Chinese novelist, Ha Jin. The writing is straightforward, unembellished, without literary flourishes, and nearly devoid of literary elements like simile and metaphor. Despite the pared down prose, the story is moving, colorful, and manages not to sound merely journalistic or reportorial but confidently and artfully written. I'd characterize it as a narrative told by a man who is emotionally open and vulnerable but whose ethic is restrained and wary of exposing anyone else's experiences other than his own to public scrutiny. He does not suppose, rather, he doesn't presume authority over another's authenticity.
It may sound contradictory but Ha, through his narrator hero, Yu Yuan, gives readers a lot of information about the Chinese character. We see that the Chinese are unashamedly sentimental, especially about their mothers and home villages. They are frequently brought to tears and mourn deeply and in open display at friends' and relatives' deaths. Their national characteristic leans toward "herd" instinct -- that is, an openly expressed inability to deal well with solitary living or friendlessness, or without a clan within which to dwell. At one point, Yu Yuan recognizes in himself and his fellow captives a national timidity because they are docile and cooperative with their American captors, and disinclined to make any efforts to escape. He notes the sharp contrast between the Chinese and North Korean POWs who organize themselves in military style, collect and construct weapons, and plot and conspire against their enemy occupiers, and who are wholeheartedly devoted to Marxist communism.

In the period of the story, the 1950s, communism was climbing into entrenchment and dominance over the people of China. Yet, the bulk of the population was apolitical, or at least, politically naive mostly due to being uneducated or minimally so. In the notorious selection process when the Chinese prisoners were forced to choose for repatriation or for release from the POW camp to Taiwan, the soldiers reverted to making their decisions on a personal level, i.e., their desire to return to mothers, lovers, and villages vs. feelings of severed connections or untethered emotions, which produced a perceived rootlessness. None seemed persuaded by the political argument to build a great communist China, nor did they suffer qualms that their choice might be perceived as betrayal of the great leader, Chairman Mao.

Compared to authors like Dai Sijie, Ma Jian, and Yu Hua, Ha's literary style seems less allegorical. His characters in no way seem symbolic but honestly human, real, and natural. He does not draw on the rich lore of Chinese legend and mythology, which stands in strong contrast to, say, the novella of Bi Feiyu above. This, of course, can be attributed to the unrelated subjects of the two works, war vs. classic opera. Even with that said, I find Ha's style very western, firmly realistic, direct, simple, and practical in a manner I haven't encountered among other Chinese authors in my library.

All these points are why I feel supported in asserting that War Trash ranks in power as an equal to any of the highly regarded American writers of WWII fiction: Mailer, Wouk, and Jones.

Publisher's Weekly is featuring short profiles of 6 contemporary Chinese authors you (and I) should be aware of in an article here. They are:

Yu Hua known for To Live
Mai Jia known for Decoded: A Novel
Liu Zhenyun
Xu Zechen
Sheng Keyi
Chen Ran known for Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused, a collection of stories by various contemporary Chinese writers

Do you own or have you read any books by them? For me, only the first two (I on both works cited and have read "Decoded" -- excellent!); the next three are unknown to me; the last is known but unread by me.