Front. Lit. Stud.

China 2011, 5(2): 139158

DOI 10.1007/s11702-011-0122-1

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Marin GLIK

On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary

Community
Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag 2011

Abstract The aim of this essay is to point out the characteristic traits of the
new Chinese literature as a specific interliterary community to some extent
different from most of the specific interliterary communities of the world, for
instance, Czech and Slovak literature, the Slavic literatures of Eastern Europe, or
the literatures of the former socialist countries. Different from these and other
communities of this kind, the new Chinese literature, especially after 1949, did
not proceed with the interliterary process without points of friction, sometimes
even with mutual attacks and mutual disrespect caused by political reasons:
ideological differences, contradictory aims, neglect of human rights, democratic
tendencies, and political propaganda. The interliterary process along which the
new Chinese literature, or better to say literatures, is progressing, is here
stressed together with interliterariness, the overstepping of one single literature
and its coming into contact with one or more single literatures of the world. The
interliterary community of Chinese literature within the whole set of its single
literatures (from the mainland of China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and
overseas Chinese literatures) presents an area where three different functions
play their roles, of which at least one should be implemented: integrational,
differentiating, and complementary. To understand the new Chinese literature in
its relations within itself and the literatures of the world is a task to be fulfilled in
the coming decades.
Keywords new Chinese literature, specific interliterary community, interliterary
process, integrational and differentiating functions
Received December 28, 2010
Marin GLIK ( )
Institute of Oriental Studies, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Klemensova 19, 813 64 Bratislava,
Slovakia
E-mail: galikm2@gmail.com

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Introduction
In 1986, an international conference entitled The Commonwealth of Modern
Chinese Literature was organized by Helmut Martin and Joseph S. M. Lau
at Reisensburg Castle, Germany. Sixty scholars from various parts of the world
discussed the diverse problems of the new Chinese literature (modern and
contemporary) that had been written up to that time in China, Malaysia,
Singapore, the Philippines, and even Switzerland. There was no representative
from Macao, since the more intensive development of Macao literature as a
single literature started no earlier than in the 1980s. There were also no
scholars treating the problems of Canadian, Australian and different European
literatures written in Chinese or by Chinese.
The exodus of the Chinese intelligentsia between the two World Wars, and
even earlier, and the subsequent politico-economic development resulted in the
spread of Chinese literature beyond the borders of the mainland of China, and
even beyond the confines of the traditional sinocentric world, i.e., East Asia,
part of Central Asia, Tibet and Vietnam. The chief aim of the organizers was to
map as thoroughly as possible the different parts of this literature on the
mainland of China (before and after 1949) written within the proper Chinese
world and in the foreign enclaves, and thus provide scholars and interested
readers with an adequate knowledge of this interliterary community, which was
at that time less developed and known than in our days.
In our time the so-called haiwai huawen wenxue (overseas
Chinese literature) comprises many more countries than nearly a quarter of a
century ago, and many more writers who are a part and parcel of it. Except for
literatures that have been discussed (but not published in the proceedings), there
were also the French, English, German, Dutch, Belgian and Luxemburgian from
Europe, and relatively well-spread Australian Chinese literature. At the
conference, Zhao Shuxia was the only representative of Swiss Chinese
literature, and Zheng Chouyu the only one from American Chinese
literature.1
Unlike all of the other papers of the conference devoted either to partial
questions (published later under the heading of general studies) or individual
authors, my paper, Interliterary and Intraliterary Aspects of the Study of
Post-1918 Chinese Literature2 had for its aim to propose a methodology of
1

Howard Goldblatt, Introduction, in Howard Goldblatt, 1990, 38; Helmut Martin,

Reisensburg 1986: Das Commonwealth der chinesischen Literaturen, Kulturkreis China:
Zur Internationalen Reisensburg 1986, in Helmut Martin, 1996, 6390, 916. See also Marin
Glik, 1989, 22330.
2
Marin Glik, Interliterary and Intraliterary Aspects of Post-1918 Chinese Literature, in
Goldblatt, 1990, 23145.

On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary Community

141

Comparative Literature suitable for the study of a literary family like the
May-Fourth and the whole Post-May-Fourth literature that was and up to now is
a community of new Chinese literature. Joseph S. M. Lau, in his contribution,
Text and Context: Towards a Commonwealth of Chinese Literature,
characterized the Commonwealth of Chinese Literature as a public entity and
rightly called for more broadmindedness.3 Of course, this concept, if applicable
as a scholarly solution to the problem, would need much more theoretical
competence and elaboration.
Two years before the Reisensburg Castle conference, another one had been
held in Smolenice Castle, Slovakia in 1984, where scholars of Comparative
Literature from Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe presented their views on
the research of various interliterary communities of the world. At that conference
the methodology of the study of interliterary communities was elaborated, which
was later discussed in a more systematic way in a book by Professor Dionz
uriin published in Slovak and later in an English version as Theory of
Interliterary Process (Bratislava: Veda 1989). For my paper presented at
Reisensburg, I followed the instructions of the 1984 Smolenice conference.
My paper was read together with Beyond Realism: Thoughts on Modernist
Experiments in Contemporary Chinese Writing by Leo Ou-fan Lee . His
paper was very well received by the audience, mine with silence. The reason was
clear. The topic of his paper was very much in vogue among Western Sinologists
and the literary debates of those years. My approach was quite new and
unexpected. C. T. Hsia , the senior among the participants, was not
satisfied with the term community. He preferred commonwealth as proposed
by both organizers. Later, Howard Goldblatt , the editor of the
proceedings, wrote positively about my paper in his Introduction, but also
pointed to its deficiency: it was not convincing enough since it did not point out
quite clearly whether post-World War II Chinese literature was intraliterary or
interliterary.4 Goldblatt, however, put my paper at the end of the volume as an
Appendix, and was criticized for it by Bonnie McDougall .5
Even before the conferences in both Castles, scholarly interest to study
Chinese literature as a kind of commonwealth or community (although
without these labels) had started in China. Rao Pengzi in her Daoyan
(Introduction) to the book edited together with Yang Xiahan
entitled Haiwai Huawen wenxue jiaocheng (A course of
Overseas Chinese literature, Jinan daxue chubanshe, 2009), mentioned a
conference in June 1982 as when the different Chinese institutions of the
3
Joseph S. M. Lau, Text and Context: Toward a Commonwealth of Modern Chinese
Literature, in Goldblatt, 1990, 1128.
4
Goldblatt, 1990, Introduction, 4.
5
See Bonnie McDougalls review of Goldblatts volume, McDougall, 1992.

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Marin GLIK

mainland of China started to have discussion about the literatures in Hong Kong
and Taiwan. In 1984, a second, and in 1986, a third conference followed, where
the term overseas Chinese literature was coined. and the proceedings of the
conference entitled Taiwan Xianggang ji haiwai Huawen wenxue lunwenji
(A selection of studies on Taiwan, Hong Kong and
Overseas Chinese literature, Haixia wenyi chubanshe 1990).
In July 1991, the last newcomers from the mainland of China joined the
Chinese interliterary community. Tao Li from the Macao Pen Club and
his five colleagues participated at a conference entitled Shijie huawen wenxue
yantaohui (Conference on world Chinese literature). It is
an irony of literary history that Macao literature, which according to Professor Ji
Xianlin was the first on Chinese soil where the impact of Western
literature was felt, joined as the last in the Chinese literary family.6
The conference on World Chinese Literature, according to my opinion,
followed the idea of Qin Mu from his article Dakai shijie Huawen wexue
zhi chuang (Open the windows for world Chinese
literature, published in Renmin ribao, October 1985), and later adopted by
Professor Kuo-ching Tu in his writings and in the journal Taiwan
Literature: English Translation Series edited by him together with Robert Backus
and published by The Forum for the Study of World Literatures in Chinese,
University of California, Santa Barbara.7 According to my opinion, the term
World Chinese Literature or Literatures is not suitable as a literary concept, as it
is in contradiction to the understanding of the relationship between the national
(or better single) supranational literary entities and the World Literature.
Although we do not have a uniform definition of World Literature, each of its
reasonable conceptions involves the mutual relationships among a larger body of
literatures, or all literatures of the world. Community of Chinese Literature
(communaut, Gemeinshaft, obschchnost, gongtongti ) is more
appropriate. It is also because this term, at least to some extent, expresses the
identity of the character of the single literatures belonging to it, their
fellowship, and their common interest, but also does not deprive them of their
uniqueness and acknowledges the differences among them.

Excursus into History

More or less up to the beginning of the 20th century, Chinese literature was a part
of the interliterary community of East Asia. This community slowly developed
with the intrusion of the Korean Paekche into the orbit of the Sino-centric literary
6
7

Ji Xianlin, May 6, 1994.

See the bilingual Kuo-ching Tu, 1997, vii-xix; and 2001, 21731.

On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary Community

143

world in the 5th century C.E. and later of Japan in the 6th7th centuries. During the
first millennium C.E., and also later, Chinese literature and culture spread
centrifugally into the surrounding world, after going to Korea, then to Japan,
Vietnam, and finally to Tibet and Mongolia. Linguistically this interliterary
community was heterogeneous, but the Chinese wenyan with its locally
adapted forms, partly up to the 19th century, was something like the lingua Latina
in Europe in the Middle Ages and later, although the native languages also found,
earlier or later, their way into the single literatures of the East Asian community.
The most progressive was Japanese literature with poetry written in Japanese in
the 9th century and great works of fiction in the 10th century.8
The overall development in the East Asian literary community became altered
during the course of the 19th century, although the beginnings of this change may
be observed in Japanese literature already one century earlier. The ultimate
decline of this community came with the defeat of China in 189495, when
gradually Japan, Korea, Mongolia, and Vietnam seceded from the community.
The cause of this decline in its first stage was set at the beginning of the 19th
century. Exploitation came also from the imperialistic West, Russia, and Japan
that only accelerated the disastrous development. After the year 1839, the process
was quickened by the Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion. The countries of
South East Asia turned their back to China; Japan began to be Chinas enemy;
and Mongolia being in the neighborhood of Russia and later the Soviet Union
decided, or was pressed, to build a so-called socialist society. Great Britain tried
to find in Tibet a new sphere of influence. At this time, Chinese literature at least
partly turned away from its own traditional legacy and reevaluated if not all then
many of her traditional values. It exchanged step by step literary wenyan for
baihua , the vernacular language. Trying to enter into the family of modern
nations and not to deteriorate because of the desperate conditions in the economy,
politics, military affairs and culture, China was obliged to change its overall
system in education, public information, the press, political parties, and
international relations.9

The May-Fourth and Post-May Fourth New Chinese Literature

(191749)
At least from 1917, Chinese literature decided, or was compelled to follow
mostly the centripetal way of development. Its literary theoreticians started with
promoting Realism, Romanticism, Expressionism, Symbolism, and literary
Decadence. Later came so-called Modernism or Proletarian Literature, and after
8
9

Marin Glik, 1995, 2228.

Oldich Krl and Miroslav Novk, 1965, 641.

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1936 also Socialist Realism. All these literary trends underwent in China certain
local development and acquired a Chinese face. They were at least to some
extent signified.
The centrifugal force of Chinese literature probably definitively ended
between the years 18941917, if we do not have in mind the possible impact
later on of the different single literatures within the interliterary community
under review. Following the disruptive breakdown of the centrifugal model of
development, new Chinese literature more or less followed a centripetal pattern,
with the exception of the borrowings among the various Chinese single
literatures. This means that it took a creative part in the selection of stimuli from
various literatures of the world. In this process Chinese literature did not profit
from geographical proximity, or only to a certain extent, e.g. from Japanese and
Bengali literature, nor did it confine itself either as to time or space. Chinese
literature reached out for the literature of the European cultural tradition from the
era of mythology down to the post World War I period, with some exception to
the Middle Ages and perhaps the Renaissance.
The situation in the reception of foreign literature changed radically in 1917.
In January of that year, Hu Shi published his famous article Wenxue
gailiang chuyi (A preliminary discussion on literary reform),
which become a manifesto of the modern Chinese literary revolution.10 This
essay recalls one of the manifestoes of the Imagist movement, whose founder
was Ezra Pound. Two of Hus older colleagues pointed either to the Bible, or
great works of ancient Greek and 19th century Russian literature, as proposed by
Zhou Zuoren ,11 or mainly to French or the then contemporary Realist
literature, as proposed by Chen Duxiu .12 The most important factor of
influence on new Chinese literature as well as on other literatures after 1916 was
translation. According to the reliable, although not complete, Minguo shiqi zong
shumu: Waiguo wenxue (Cumulative catalogue of
the Republican period: Foreign literature) for the years 191149, 4,404 translated
works (creative, literary and critical, or historical) were published in China.
Among them 1,204 concerned Russian and Soviet literature; 794, English; 607,
French; 557, American; 244, Japanese; and 234 German.13 The years around the
May Fourth Movement were the period of greatest literary freedom, where all the
kinds of mostly good literary works from different traditional literatures up to
Modernism were introduced to China, and also discussed and written about.
10
11
12
13

Cf. T. S. Eliot, ed.,1954, 47.

Zhou Zuoren, 1989, 512 and 37685.
Chen Duxiu, 1917, 14.
Marin Glik, 2003, 632.

On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary Community

145

In the interliterary process, the quantity or even quality of translated works of

literature, criticism, and history is not the most important, but the measure of
their linking up with the receiving literary structure, mainly within the
framework of the indigenous literary world. Therefore, it is necessary to follow
the intensity of the impact, and the fortune (Wirkung) of the translated or
otherwise introduced or studied literary works. Very conspicuous in the first
years of the literary revolution after 1917 was the impact of Rabindranath Tagore
on Guo Moruo , Bing Xin and Wang Tongzhao . There was
also a Werther-fieber among Chinese writers and readers after Guo Moruos
translation of Werther in 1921.The great impact of Ibsen and also of Oscar Wilde
or Gabriele DAnnunzio is to be observed throughout the whole 1920s. Just the
same can be claimed about Baudelaire and Verlaine, and to a lesser extent
Mallarm and other French poets on Chinese Symbolists or Decadents such as Li
Jinfa , Mu Mutian , Wang Duqing and Feng Naichao
. Yu Dafu enriched Chinese literature with his characters suggestive
of the followers of the Yellow Book and of the Japanese writer Sato Haruo
and his works resembling to some extent the watakushi-shosetsu (I-novels).
Hong Shen learned much from Eugene ONeill when writing Zhao
Yanwang (King Zhao of the hell) which was modeled after ONeills
expressionist play The Emperor Jones.
If up to around 192425 the Symbolist and Post-symbolist tendencies in new
Chinese literature could compete with the Pre-realist, Romantic and Naturalist
trends, from these years at least, and later, the situation began to change. Some
critics of Communist orientation, such as Deng Zhongxia and Yun
Daiying , proposed that men of letters should form an organizational and
constructive force, since literature can serve society as the most effective means
of rousing the revolutionary courage of the masses and building an indispensable
condition for the possibility of political and economic struggle oriented against
Western imperialism and for the realization of Communist ideals. In March 1930,
The Leftist League of Chinese Writers (193036) was formed, led by
Communists, or pro-Communist intellectuals. Not all foreign literature that made
an impact on Chinese literature was Marxist, proletarian or revolutionary,
although Russian and Soviet examples were highlighted. The influence of
Russian literature and of Russian anarchism is seen in the early works of Ba Jin
, although the impact of French Naturalism, especially Zolas, is easily to be
observed there. In the novels of Lao She of this period we see the impact
of Charles Dickens and especially Joseph Conrad. Dickens was one of the first
authors read by Zhang Tianyi , who later in his satirical works was
influenced by N. V. Gogol and A. P. Chekhov. Mao Dun in his best novel
Ziye (Midnight) followed Zolas LArgent and the Nordic mythology of

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Elder and Younger Eda. Most receptive towards foreign stimuli in the years
before the War of Resistance Against Japan were probably Cao Yu and Shi
Zhecun . In Cao Yus play Leiyu (Thunderstorm) there are the
influences of Euripides Hippolytus or Racines Phdre, Ibsens Ghosts and The
Pillars of Society and Galsworthys Strife. In another of his plays, Richu
(Sunrise), Chekhovs impact is more strong, and in Yuanye (The wilderness)
he followed ONeills The Emperor Jones, as Hong Shen did before him. Shi
Zhecun was the most important representative of the Shanghai Modernists of the
end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s. Among his favorite writers and
models, he mentioned A. Schnitzler, A. France, H. Ellis, and the Marquis de Sade.
He also studied literary Freudianism more than other Chinese writers of the time.
Among the Neo-Sensualists (Xin ganjue pai ; in Japanese,
Shin-kankakuha) such as Mu Shiying and Liu Na-ou , we find an
inclination to Japanese Neo-Sensualist writers, such as Kawabata Yasunari
, the first Japanese Nobel Prize winner. Other Chinese Symbolist poets owe
much to French and English Symbolism, such as He Qifang , or to French
and Spanish Symbolism such as Bian Zhilin and Dai Wangshu .
The first years of the War of Resistance Against Japan and the dissolution of
the Leftist League of Chinese Writers brought a change. More attention was
devoted to the struggle against Japanese militarism and to the propagation of
Chinese patriotism. The best literary pieces in the years 193749 were similar to
those of the 1920s and of the first half of the 1930s, influenced by foreign
literature and written outside of the framework of the official Nationalist or
Communist literary policy. Weicheng (Fortress besieged) by Qian
Zhongshu was written under the impact of the Decline and Fall by
Evelyn Waugh. The drama Fengxu (Windswept bloosoms) by Yang Jiang
, the wife of Qian Zhongshu, has ostensible traces of Ibsens Hedda Gabler
and The Wild Duck. Feng Zhis Shisihang ji (Sonnets) can
hardly be imaginable without R. M. Rilke and Goethe, or his study under K.
Jaspers. Ba Jins Hanye (Cold nights) shows direct relationships with
Zolas Madame Racquin, Wildes The Happy Prince, and even Aeschylus
Agamemnon, works Ba Jin read or edited. The favourite poets of Ai Qing
included the Belgian Symbolist E. Verhaeren, Walt Whitman, and also V.
Mayakovsky. Mayakovskys political poetry was read and imitated by some
Chinese poets, such as Tian Jian , He Jingzhi , and Guo Xiaochuan
. During the 1940s, Tang Qi and Zheng Min , students of Feng
Zhi, were enthralled by Rilke. Other of his students, such as Mu Dan and
Yuan Kejia were influenced by T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and another of
their teachers in Kunming, W. Empson. It is necessary also to point out that the

On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary Community

147

Bible, one of the greatest works of World Literature, had an impact on some of
the best Chinese writers of this period, from Zhou Zuoren up to Mu Dan.14

New Chinese Literatures after 1949

New Chinese literatures existed before 1949, too. But after 1949, a new situation
was formed in the Chinese world. At that time, the new (or otherwise called
contemporary, which is only a partly appropriate term) Chinese literature
became a community of Chinese literatures, and, more precisely, at least
according to my understanding, an interliterary community of Chinese literatures,
written in different kind of Chinese so-to-say, and even, I dare to claim, in
different languages in different countries. This literature is being (and was)
written on at least four continents: Asia, America, Europe, and Australia. One
needs not to be a prophet to say that it will also be created in Africa in the future.
The creators of this Chinese literature in the mainland of China and to some
extent in Taiwan are often monoliterary, while in Hong Kong, Macao, in
Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia, America, Europe, and Australia, bi- or
poly-literariness is a common phenomenon.
The literatures of the mainland of China, Taiwan, Hong Kong (a British colony
up to 1997 and later a Special Administrative Region of the PRC), Macao
(a Portuguese colony up to 1999 and then the same as Hong Kong) form the core
of the new Chinese literature now. All other literatures, known now mostly as
overseas Chinese literature, are not so differentiated and variegated, but still are
important in their own ways and worthy of study. Each of them I regard as a
single literature with its history, which is sometimes very long if we regard it
as a part of the interliterary community. We mentioned Macao above, but, for
instance, pre-New Malayan literature in the case of well-known pantuns from the
15th and 16th centuries has its roots in part in the folk poetry of the Shijing
(Book of Songs).15 Traditional Chinese novels, such as Sanguo yanyi
(The Romance of the Three Kingdoms) and Xihan tongsu yanyi
(Romance of the Western Han) were translated in Thailand in the 19th century.16
In the Indonesia of that time some of these novels were translated into
Malayu-Betawi.17 Although it was only translated literature, it probably had
14

Ibid., 6324.
Wu Yiqi, Dongnanya huawen wenxue gaiguan (A general survey of
Southeast Asian Chinese literatures), in Rao Pengzi and Yang Xiahan, eds., 2009, 52.
16
Cf. loc. cit. and Prapin Manomaivibool, Thai Translations of Chinese Literary Works, in
Claudine Salmon et al. eds., 1987, 31720. A list of translations of mostly Chinese traditional
novels are in Lin Yingqiang, 1969, 1424.
17
Wu Yiqi, op. cit., 52.
15

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some features of native (Malaysian) literary adaptation. The same could be said
about the traditional Chinese fiction popular in South-East Asia,18 East Asian
countries,19 and in Mongolia from 17th to the 20th century.20 In the United States,
Zhang Weiping in 1847 wrote a series of poems, Jinshan pian
(Golden mountain), reminding us of gold-Fieber and San Francisco. There is also
the anonymous Ku shehui (Weeping society) written in 1905.21
The history of PRC literature up to the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976
and the years of the shanghen wenxue (Scar literature) mostly did not
bring any valuable literary works, with some exceptions such as Zuzhibu xinlai
de qingnianren (A young newcomer in the Organization
Department) by Wang Meng , Hai Rui baguan (Hai Ruis
demission from office) by Wu Han , and Xi wang Changan
(Watching Changan from the West) by Lao She. The first was written under the
influence of the Soviet writer Galina Nikolayeva, and the third that of N. V.
Gogol. After the short period of xungen wenxue (Root-seeking
literature) initiated by Han Shaogong , some PRC writers, mostly under
the influence of Gabriel Garca Mrquez, Jorge Luis Borges and the French
theatre of the absurd, wrote important and valuable works, such as Mo Yan ,
Jia Pingwa , Ma Yuan and Gao Xingjian , the Nobel Prize
for Literature winner for 2000.
Taiwan produced mostly poor literature in the first years after 1949, but with
the founding of the journal Xiandai shi (Modern Poetry) by Ji Xian
18

See three invaluable essays by Claudine Salmon: A Note on Javanese Works Derived from
Chinese Fiction, Malay Translations of Chinese Fiction in Indonesia, and Writings in
Romanized Malay by the Chinese of Malaya: A Preliminary Inquiry, in Claudine Salmon et al.
eds., op. cit., 375496. On the impact of the Chinese traditional novels on Vietnamese
literature, see Yan Bao , The Influence of Chinese Fiction on Vietnamese Literature,
Ibid., 265316. On the impact of Chinese literature in Cambodia, see Jacques Nepote and
Khing Hoc Dy, Chinese Literary Influence on Cambodia in the 19th and 20th Centuries, Ibid.,
32172.
19
Kim Dong-uk, The Influence of Chinese Stories and Novels on Korean Fiction, in
Claudine Salmon et al. eds., op. cit., 5584; A. F. Trotsevich, The Plots of Chinese Fiction in
Korean Vernacular Novels, Ibid., 85105; and Oki Yasushi & Otsuka Hidekata, Chinese
Coloquial Novels in Japan: during the Edo Period (16031867), Ibid., 10639. For the
translation of works (including literary) from Chinese into Japanese, see Tam Yue-him ,
Saneto Keishu , and Ogawa Hiroshi , eds., 1981.
20
Boris Riftin , Mongolian Translations of Old Chinese Novels and Stories: A
Tentative Bibliographic Survey, in Claudine Salmon et al. eds., op. cit., 21362 and another
of Riftins essays written together with V.I. Semanov, Mongoskie perevody starinnykh
kitaiskikh romanov i povestei (Mongolian Translations of Old Chinese Novels and Stories),
in P. A. Grintser et al., eds., 1981, 23479.
21
Liu Juan, 20 shiji 50 niandai yiqian de Beimei huawen wenxue 20 50
(North-American literature in Chinese before the 1950s), in Rao Pengzi and Yang
Xiahan, 2009, 12738.

On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary Community

149

in 1953, the journal Wenxue zazhi (Literary Journal) in 1956, and the
journal Xiandai wenxue (Modern Literature) in 1960, some outstanding
literary works were created. From what I know, Taibeiren (Taipei people)
by Bai Xianyong was the first work that made an impression on Western
readers, and then Sha fu (The butchers wife) by Li Ang . Other
writers who were well-received abroad are the novelists Huang Chunming
and Chen Yingzhen . Zhang Xiaofeng is known for her
sanwen (essays); Yu Guangzhong , Xia Yu and Xi Murong for
their poetry. In 1995, Xi told me that she is more read on the mainland of China
than in Taiwan, and even fake works supposedly by her are published there.
Seven volumes of her poetry and prose appeared there from 19892002.22
Hong Kong literature is different both from that of the mainland of China and
Taiwan because of different political, social and economic development. With the
exception of the relatively short time of the Japanese occupation, this British
colony, now attached to the PRC, enjoyed enviable freedom in this part of world.
Raoul D. Findeisen sees Liu Yichang the founder of Xianggang wenxue
(Hong Kong Literature) (1985), as one of the first modern Hong Kong
literati.23 Jin Yong , author of the wuxia xiaoshuo (martial arts
novels) is the Hong Kong author most translated into English. Otherwise, Hong
Kong authors are rarely translated abroad. Readers outside of the Chinese world
should look for the translations made by translators from Hong Kong, such as
Eva Hung and Martha Cheung . Zhang Ailing (Eileen
Chang), sometimes compared to Lu Xun, is regarded by many in Hong Kong as a
Hong Kong writer. It is also difficult to say whether Han Suyin of
Sino-Belgian origin is a Hong Kong writer, although she spent some years there
and her best work, well-known in the West, A Many-Splendored Thing, had been
written in Hong Kong and was about Hong Kong after the founding of the PRC.
The World of Suzie Wong by Richard Mason is the best known in the West, but
even more through its film adaptation. Two other good female writers, Xi Xi
and Xu Xi , are little known outside Hong Kong. According to Bonnie
McDougall, Ditu ji: yi ge xiangxiang de chengshi de kaoguxue :
(The atlas: the archaeology of an imaginary city) by Dung
Kai-cheung resembles Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. 24 Leung
22

Wei Tianjiao, 2003, 301. It seems that in Taiwan more Western writers found response than
in the mainland of China. Helmut Martin mentions Franz Kafka, Jean-Paul Sartre,
Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, William H. Faulkner and James Joyce in his book, 142,
183 and 186.
23
Raoul D. Findeisen, 228.
24
See Bonnie McDougall, Diversity as Value: Marginality, Post-Colonialism and Identity in
Modern Chinese Literature, in Artur K. Wardega , 2009, 13764 and Journal of
Modern Literature in Chinese (), Vol. 8, No. 2, 2008 and Vol. 9, No. 1, 2009,
which is a special issue on The Identity, Issues and Development of Hong Kong Literature.

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Ping-kwan is another poet known outside mostly by the translations of

Wolfgang Kubin .25 The poet Wong Kwok-pun is well-known in
Hong Kong but hardly known abroad.26 Hardly any attention has been devoted
to Macao literature in its interliterary aspects, at least not that written in
Chinese.27
The most developed Asian Chinese literature probably is Malaysian-Chinese
literature.28 In a paper entitled The Identity of Malaysian-Chinese Writers,
read at the Reisensburg Conference, but not included in the proceedings, Wong
Seng-tong of the National University of Malaysia said, The Malaysian
literary scene, like Malaysian society itself, is multi-racial and multi-lingual.29
Malaysian Chinese writers up to 1965 included also those of Singapore who
wrote in Chinese. In the 19th century, with the expansion of European capital to
Southeast Asia, Chinese immigration expanded, too, but only a small number of
Chinese intellectuals accompanied the great majority of the illiterate masses.
These intellectuals after the fall of the monarchical order received with
enthusiasm the movement for baihua and later also vernacular literary works, at
first sanwen and later also xiaoshuo fiction. The literary works of Malaysian
Chinese literature mirrored the literary development on the Chinese mainland,
but mostly it was art for life sake literature for utilitarian purposes, following
anti-feudal, anti-imperialist and later proletarian purposes. The Chinese
centrifugal policy, which failed in the interliterary community of East Asia and
later in relation to the West, at the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of
the 20th century changed its direction and gradually formed an interliterary
community of new Chinese literature. According to Wong Seng-tong, The
cynical view from some critics that pre-war Malaysian-Chinese writing was the
overseas version of modern Chinese literature is perhaps not an exaggeration.30
25
See, for instance, Seltsame Geschichten von Vgeln und Blumen. Gedichte. Hong
Kong, no publisher, 2000; and Von Politik and Frchten des Feldes. Berlin:
DAAD, 2000.
26
Laurence K. P. Wong, Image-Making in Classical Chinese and in Western Poetry, in
Marin Glik ed., 1994, 17789.
27
In Zhu Shoutong ed., Hanyu xin wenxue tongshi (A
comprehensive history of new literature in Chinese language), Vol. 2, there are only a few
pages devoted to Macao literature, 62632. Detailed, but partly a catalogue-like history of
Macao literature has been written by Zhang Jianhua , 2009.
28
This opinion has been expressed by Wang Dewei in his paper delivered at the
conference entitled Teaching and Research on Malaysian Chinese Literature, held at Fudan
University, January 1213, 2009. Professor Wang asserts that Malaysian Chinese literature is
even better than Hong Kong literature.
29
See Wong Seng-tongs contribution later published in the volume Dongnanya huawen
wenxue (Chinese literature in Southeast Asia). Goethe-Institute Singapore
and Singapore Association of Writers, n. p. 1988, 110.
30
Ibid., 118.

On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary Community

151

But this is not fully true. There were writers calling for the use of local colour,
going back from Chineseness, if I may use this term, to Malayaness. This
tendency became more obvious after the World War. More Malaysian writers in
Chinese were born outside of China and they tried to find the ways to give the
post- Pacific War literature a new face. One of them was the poet Wu An ,
born in 1937.31
All other Southeast Asian new Chinese literatures have to some extent a
similar fate. According to the paper by Sy Yinchow read at the Reisenburg
conference, the Philippine new Chinese literature started in the early 1930s under
the impact of Lu Xuns and Lao Shes books that appeared in the Philippine
school libraries. At first the first works of Philippine writers were published in
China, which shows that there existed a cultural interflow between the
transmitting and target literature.32 In 1951, the Philippine Chinese Literary
Workers Association was founded, which represented the mainstream for this
literature. In the 1980s, this association was replaced by Filipino-Chinese
Literary Arts Association. Philippine Chinese writers in the post-war years were
more oriented towards Taiwanese literature and often published their works in
Taiwanese journals and publishing houses. The Summer Writers Seminar,
established in 1961, had many writers from Taiwan participate, including Yu
Guangzhong, Ji Xian, and Rongzi , which helped the Filipino writers to
acquire further writing abilities.33 Among the new Philippine writers at that time,
Zhuang Kechang , born in 1900, was the oldest; all the others are younger,
being born at the end of 1930s or in the 1940s.34
New Indonesian Chinese men of letters were mostly under the influence of the
martial art and yanqing (sentimental) novels coming from Hong Kong and
Taiwan in the 1970s and 1980s. New trends in this literature started in the 1990s
and at the beginning of this century following the new government policy
towards Chinese Indonesians, which allowed for departments of Chinese
literature to be established at the universities. In the last ten years, many young
men of letters joined the ranks of writers. The oldest among the prominent
writers was A Wu , born in 1912.35
31

Goat Koei Lang-Tan, Ways of Experiences: The Individual Conception of Chinese and
Western Poetic Tradition in the Poems of Wu An, a Contemporary Malaysian Poet, in Chinese
Literature in Southeast Asia, 17385 and her Wu An de zheli shi (Philosophic
poems of Wu An), in Huang Houxing ed., 1999, 21736. See also a very detailed treatment of
the Malayan and Singapore literatures in Fang Xiu, 1977; and Caroline Draeger, 1997.
32
Modern Chinese Literature in the Philippines: A Sketch (unpublished paper read at the
Reisenburg conference), 1.
33
Ibid., 2.
34
Wu Yiqi, op. cit., 926.
35
Ibid., 967 and partly also Leo Suryadinata, Chinese Literature in Indonesian and Malay
Translations: A Preliminary Study, in Chinese Literature in Southeast Asia, 24953.

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New Thai Chinese literature started at the end of the 1930s, but only in the
1980s was a more intensive development to be observed, mainly in poetry. The
oldest among the prominent writers is Sima Gong , born in Thailand in
1933, who, as a young boy, attended schools in China, and later, when 17 years
old, returned to China. The titles of one of his collection of essays, Mingyue
shuizhong lai (Coming of the clear moon in the water), and of
another collection of essays and short stories, Ren yao, gu chuan
(Monsters, old boat) allude to the old home of his ancestors.36
We shall not describe here the new Chinese literatures in the Northeast Asia,
i.e. in Korea and Japan, and shall proceed to the literatures written in Chinese by
ethnic Chinese in the United States and in Canada. We mentioned above that this
literature started already in 1847 and developed further in 1905 and later. The
more remarkable development began only after the World War II thanks to the
initiative of Hu Shi and the Chinese students in the United States to establish the
literary association called Baima she (White horse). It was of a short
duration, however, and last only up to 1958, but in the 1960s and 1970s many
students from Taiwan and Hong Hong studied at American universities and about
30 of them became important writers or poets, including Bai Xianyong (probably
the most famous among them), Nie Hualing , Yang Mu , Chen Ruoxi
, Wai-lim Yip , Xu Daran , Fei Ma , and Zheng
Chouyu. Even more writers took refuge in the United States from the mainland
of China in the 1980s and 1990s. The most prominent among them is probably
Bei Dao .
Some Chinese writers are living and writing in different European countries.
Among them certainly the most prominent is Gao Xingjian, who is living in
France. Yang Lian , Hong Ying and Zhao Yiheng reside in
England, and Han Suyin and Zhao Shuxia, in Switzerland. Some Chinese writers
are or were living in Australia or New Zealand, among them the late Gu Cheng
and his wife Xie Ye .

The Characteristics of the New Chinese Literature as an

Interliterary Community
From what we said above it may be deduced that the new Chinese literature is an
interliterary community. According to my view, it is the so-called specific
interliterary community, although to some extent different than others known up
36
Wu Yiqi, op. cit., 8892 and a more detailed study by Ba Er , Taihua wenxue de
fazhan yu Zhongguo wenxue de guanxi (The development
of Thai literature and its relations to the Chinese literature), in Chinese Literature in Southeast
Asia, 15363.

On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary Community

153

to now and studied as interliterary communities, like Czech and Slovak literature,
the literatures of the former socialist countries, or the Slavic literatures of Eastern
Europe. For these literatures were or still are typical with very intensive forms of
cooperation. It does not mean, however, that these literatures did develop in
mutual accord, straightforwardly, and in the same or approximate rhythm. There
are clear differences between Czech and Slovak literatures despite their historical
relatively harmonious development and even the same state formation nearly the
whole of the 20th century.
Among the so-called standard literary communities, there exist no such
intimate communications since they are formed on the basis of more broad racial,
ethnic or religious factors, as in Slavic literatures, Romance literatures, the
literature of German-speaking countries, English and American literatures, or
Arabic literatures. Here also the political aspects play their role. Colonial and
post-colonial factors were or still are decisive for many literatures of Africa and
Asia.37
Different from the specific interliterary communities mentioned above, the
new Chinese literature, certainly from 1949, did not proceed along the
interliterary process without points of friction, sometimes even in mutual attacks
and disrespect caused by political reasons: ideological differences, contradictory
aims, neglect of human rights, democratic tendencies and the stress on political
propaganda. Although the literature from the mainland of China was the first that
called for the study of Huawen wenxue (literature written in Chinese) in the
broadest sense, it does not mean that the literature from the mainland of China
ceased to be the focus of contention more than any other literature of this
community. One source of the contention might be the problem of literary
language. Bonnie Mc Dougall writes that there are good reasons for the Chinese
state to impose a single language policy on the whole China. This is one of the
remnants of the old imperial era and its centrifugal efforts. She is right by
pointing out that Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are separate Nordic languages,
and she raises the question of why mutually unintelligible Cantonese and
Mandarin (are) regarded as one language and its dialect.38
The term literarnost (in Czech), literaturnos (in Russian) and
literariness (in English) comes probably from the pen of Roman Jakobson and
was used, most likely, for the first time in 1921.39 It took some decades before a
term began to be used for interliterary studies: medziliterrnos (in Slovak),
mezhliteraturnos (in Russian) and interliterariness (in English).
Interliterariness goes beyond literariness when the literariness of a single
37
38
39

Dionz uriin, 1993, 213.

Bonnie McDougall, 2007, 1389.
Roman Jakobson, 1921, 11.

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Marin GLIK

literature comes into contact with one or more other single literatures.
Interliterariness in the new Chinese literature, we may observe, when the
different components of one single literature of this community meets another
single literature in creative competition,40 when, for instance, Jin Yongs novels
are published outside of Hong Kong in the mainland of China and creatively
accepted there.
Interliterariness is dependent on interliterary relations, their impact, and
response. It may be internal or external. If the scholarly or popular books or the
articles, or reviews of books, e.g., from Taiwan or related to Taiwanese literature,
are introduced to the mainland of China, they may, or need not, influence the
different components of the literary structure of the target literature. If they do,
then we may speak about internal stimuli; if not, then they are only external
elements without the impact and response so necessary for possible new
development. The poetry of Yu Guangzhong or Xi Murong eventually may find
such a response there.
Comparative literary study within the interliterary communities should devote
more attention to the interliterary process. Single literatures have their own
literary structures. One of the most characteristic features of all literatures is that
they are not stable. Jean Piaget was right when affirming that all structures, such
as psychological, mathematical, or literary ones, are, according to him, in the
permanent process of coming to be.41 The new literature in Chinese was
certainly different in its May-Fourth Movement era, before and after 1949, and
also about a quarter of century ago, than it is in our days. It is our duty now to
study it in our period as the literature of our global age in its ever changing
conditions. If I insist that it should be studied as an interliterary community,
I have several reasons for it. They are as follows:
(1) This literature is created by Chinese nationals (or by ethnic Chinese, if you
prefer) in China proper or outside of China; it is usually written in Chinese, its
dialects, but also in foreign languages.
(2) When written or published outside of China, it has at least some Chinese
characteristic features in symbiosis with the literature of the country(ies) where it
is produced.
(3) The interliterary community of Chinese literature within the whole set of
its single literatures presents an area where different functions of this literature
play their roles, of which at least one of the following should be implemented:
A. An integrational function where one single literature of this community
overtakes and then creatively elaborates the impulses from its other parts, such as
40

Marin Glik, Interliterariness as a Concept in Comparative Literature, in Steven Ttsy

de Zepetnek ed., 2003, 35.
41
Jean Piaget, Structuralism. Trans. and ed. by Chaninah Maschler, 1971, 140.

On the New Chinese Literature as an Interliterary Community

155

in Taiwanese literature and the Southeast Asian literatures of the post-May

Fourth era. Taiwanese literature integrated at that time willy-nilly some elements
of Japanese literature. In recent years, it is possible to observe this first tendency
in Macao literature when it is influenced by and follows to some extent the
development in the literature of the mainland of China, but on the other hand also
does the same with Portuguese literature or possibly another one written in
Portuguese. The Chinese literature of the mainland of China, if does not integrate
into itself the martial novels of Jin Yong, then Hong Kong literature participates
at least externally in its literary structure. Wang Li of Soochow University,
in one of his studies in the book collection entitled Taigang wenxue mingjia
mingzuo jianshang (Appreciating the famous Taiwanese
and Hong Kong writers and their works), mentions 15 novels by this prolific
author and that all of these works appeared on the mainland of China. Although
Wei Tianjiao of Nanjing Hehai University, the editor of this collection, is
a Vice-President of the Jiangsu Association for the Study of the Taiwanese, Hong
Kong, Macao and Overseas Chinese Literature, he has not chosen one writer
from Macao literature.42
B. A differentiating function consists in the fact that some of the single
literatures of one and the same interliterary community are more developed in the
process and others are not. It is necessary to study the reasons for this fact and to
point out the merits or shortcomings. Certainly, the Taiwanese literature of the
1960s and 1970s was incomparably more worthy of appreciation than the
literature of the mainland of China that, with some exceptions, produced mostly
worthless literary works before and during the Cultural Revolution (196676).
The differentiating function may be studied in regard to different developments
within the Chinese interliterary community already in the post-World War I years,
when we may observe the change of attitude of the Malaysian Chinese writers to
the Chinese literature in China. Malaysian writers began to reflect local colours
of the country they lived in, pointing to the fact that the art and literature cannot
free itself from the boundary of time and space.43
(4) The complementary function is to some extent similar to the integrational
one. It is connected often, but not always, with the interliterary communities
where poly-literariness is an important characteristic feature. In the new Chinese
interliterary community, it is Hong Kong where the writers and literary critics
may use three languages, or two languages and one dialect: Mandarin Chinese,
Cantonese and English, or Taiwan where many, although not the overwhelming
42

For more theory on this and the following functions, see Dionz uriin, Communauts
interlittraires spcifiques, Vol. 6. 3942.
43
Wong Seng-tong, op. cit., 11920.

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Marin GLIK

majority, may use Chinese, English and Taiwanese. Thanks to these

poly-linguistic abilities, the interliterary community may develop to a higher
standard of perfection. The situation is still very problematic in the mainland of
China where only a small number of creative writers has mastered any other
language than Chinese. Professor Kubins criticism in this respect is
understandable and justified. Contemporary Chinese translations are seldom fully
reliable and also the censorship on the mainland of China brings new problems
and misapprehensions. What Chinese literature on the mainland of China mostly
needs, as remarked by Kubin during the lively discussions at the 2nd International
Conference on World Sinology at Renmin University of China, Beijing, on
November 1, 2009, is to master not only contemporary Chinese fangshi
(methods) of study and writing, but also the Western methods.44 Otherwise this
literature or literary criticism or history will never be able to compete with the
great literatures of the world.
In order to appreciate and evaluate the new Chinese interliterary community, it
is necessary to study the impact on it of the literatures written in English, French,
German, Spanish, Portuguese (in the case of Macao literature), Japanese, and, of
course, in Russian. And do not forget the Bible! I mention here only Harold
Blooms Ruin the Sacred Truths: Poetry and Belief from the Bible to the Present,
comparing the Bible with Homer, then with Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton, and
then going on to Nietzsche, Freud, and Kafka.45
The last part of my reflections is perhaps the product of the mind of an
idealistic dreamer, or of an exacting literary scholar. My suggestions may not be
accomplishable in the next decades of the present century, but I hope that the
Chinese nation, its parts inside and outside of China itself and its enclaves on
four continents, will find enough scholars in the universities and scholarly
institutes to define precisely the single literatures within the bounds of the new
Chinese interliterary community and their place in World Literature.

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