Between dream and reality

“Although we now have much more books published, it’s even harder to find a classic.” Said professor Yang Yang from Chinese Study Faculty of China Eastern Normal University, he pointed out that China literature needs time to walk out of the more and more commercial atmosphere, then true gold fears no fiery.

Chinese literature has experienced several revolutions, some were progresses, but some were devastating catastrophes. How is the current situation based on market economy environment? Prof. Yang will tell us the story.

2009, Chinese authors published altogether 1500 novels, which is a tremendous amount comparing with other literature giant countries. By then, China had had more than 10 literature awards which have big influences, Mao Dun Award, Lu Xun Award, etc. However, after several years’ operating and management with some critical comments, these Chinese local authors have been endued with more confidences on writing, which before was totally Nobel Prize oriented.

Nobel Prize in 20th Century was an altar in Chinese literature community words. Now after Xingjian Gao received his Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000, the worship has been mitigated. Prof. Yang felt Chinese authors were excited to wait this “first” out, because they can anyway take a raw model for reference. In China, there're some writers can be in line with Xingjian Gao, like Jia Pingao, Mo Yan and so on, they also have made great achievements. Another side, due to the more frequency international communication, Chinese authors are putting themselves into the world context with broader minds.

Not only the authors are getting sophisticated, the whole biology chain of publishing is rape now in China, while it’s commercially running. A simple sign is the Bestseller concept in China becomes popular, authors use media to make their fame and then write quick productions what are according to the market demands, after 5years, they disappear again. Prof. Yang said, this chain has two edges, it’s making Chinese literature market prosperous, while its businesswise directs the unbalanced market share, that’s why there are more novels than prose, in order to feed this huge chain.

Can a bestseller literature production become a classic? In Prof. Yang’s point of view, there is no obvious boundary between these two ideas. Basically, people don’t put bestseller into pure literature category, and a classic book always attracting a small group audience. But actually we have some famous bestsellers who have been regarded as classics too, Jin Yong’s Swordsman novels, Zhang Henshui’s etc., so bestseller is the definition of publisher, the classic should be selected by time.

Now there’re lots of young writers writing their youth literature, via internet and also published books, which are highlighted in current book market, Han Han, Guo Jingming etc., they were born after 1980, so called post-80s writers, who are familiar with media propaganda to promote themselves, “their productions are still not matured, but Chinese government takes a high attention on them, old generation writers want to have discussion with them.” Prof. Yang mentioned the meeting with these post-80s writers will be hold in Shanghai next month. He as a professor always advocate students to create via cyber tools as their interests, it’s a good way to communicate with people, just like a new literature style started only 10 years ago in China, so it’s hard to judge, and as literature enthusiasts, we have to try and check it out.

About the problem and restrictions in Chinese literature, Prof. Yang emphasized the consumption demand is shrink and authors still have to mind the taboo topics, e.g. Land Reformation, Cultural Revolution. China’s book market is showing its depreciation, people don’t like to read, or if they like, they prefer reading digital versions online, which is against the publishing passion, he compared with Americans, where people still read at home, in libraries, metros, which gave him a big quake, why people in China are losing this reading tradition? Although the publishing market seems growing in absolute numbers, the revival of Chinese literature is still between dream and reality.

Postscript: To get Prof. Yang’s contact was a bit “complicated”, coz it was through other two professors in Shanghai. They were so precise that tried to recommend me the right one to talk. It was a big honor to have these kind helps, thanks a lot to all of you, Prof. Yang Yang, Prof. Liu Shan, and Prof. Wen Guiliang.