Literature

Novelists enjoying prime time

By Zhu Yuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-06-01 08:21

The shift from collective consciousness to an increasingly personal perception of life characterizes the general trajectory of the past 30 years of Chinese literature.

Collective consciousness refers to the way a writer used to depict the characters in their stories. For example, when class struggle was the major line of ideology, this theme dominated everything. No matter the novel, the story always followed the class struggle line, and heroes and heroines were always conscious of this conflict.

Even in the early 1980s, when the reform and opening-up policy was initiated, most of the novels or short stories were concerned about what individuals had suffered during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). These works were nicknamed "Scar literature", which reflected the collective consciousness of the entire society.

A breakthrough occurred in the mid-1980s, when Wang Shuo wrote about ordinary people, or xiao renwu (small potatoes), and their trifles in life. The storylines had nothing to do with ideology or even mainstream social values. They were just good stories.

Wang's novels came at a time when many argued whether the role of literature should function as a vehicle of ideology or as a means to promote or condemn certain values.

There were heated debates on this topic but today these critics would more than likely look back and consider the arguments ridiculous.

As Chinese society became increasingly pluralistic, novelists became more aware they needed to change their stereotyped way of narrative if they wanted to better connect with readers.

In the early 1990s, the "new generation novelists" established fresh ties with the reading public by writing about how individuals dealt with their own problems.

But time shows no mercy and it does not pause for any genre, particularly so in today's fast-paced information age. Many of these xinshengdai writers, who were quite famous only a decade ago, have fallen into oblivion.

Their names would be hard to find on the Internet and today's young readers have no interest in their once-popular works.

The time span for each new generation of novelists to outshine their predecessors is getting shorter. At the same time, the unprecedented development of the Internet has made it possible for an increasing number of talented wordsmiths to let loose their imagination when it comes to writing fiction.

I have interviewed novelists who were concerned about the perception of life by individuals. They wanted their stories to hit a chord with readers and they did. Some of them became best-selling authors.

The realm of fiction is diversified in terms of content and its different forms of narrative and there is something for everybody.

With such a large population, and with many different literary tastes in the country, a good Chinese author will always be able to make a living writing fiction. Even a small percentage of this massive readership market is commercially viable.

As an avid reader of fiction, I believe that novelists today are enjoying a golden period as long as they can employ their aptitude to the fullest. This country is in need of great novelists, whose books can be mirrors of this great time for this great country. It won't be long before we see such great novels appear.

Zhu Yuan is a senior columnist with China Daily.

(China Daily 06/01/2011 page38)