Yesterday's big news was the announcement of the republication of Ruined Capital by Jia Pingwa, one of the major novelistic works of the past few decades, and a perpetual lightning rod for controversy and criticism. The Writers Publishing House is doing the honors.
The book has for some years been under something like a soft ban: no new editions have come out for a while, and it was getting harder and harder to find a non-pirated version of the book. The 'controversy', based almost solely on the fact that there's sex in the book, was pretty silly from the beginning: it was an awfully prurient read when it came out in 1993, but the constitution of the modern Chinese reading public is highly fortified compared to what it used to be, and it's hard to imagine anyone really raising an eyebrow at the steamy scenes today.
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By Eric Abrahamsen, July 30, 2:33a.m.
It's time once again for the Mao Dun literary prize, so dear to the official heart of the Chinese literary scene. Never mind that everyone whose opinion we respect snorts in disdain at the very mention of this prize (which is administered by the Writers Association) it's still a literary event.
To get the suspense out of the way, there were four winners of this year's prize, which considered full-length works of fiction published between 2002 and 2006: Jia Pingwa's Qinqiang (秦腔, Qin Opera), generally considered the 'big winner', Chi Zijian's E'erguna He You'an (额尔古纳河右岸, The Right Bank of the Arguna River), Zhou Daxin's Huguang Shanse (湖光山色, Pastorale) and Mai Jia's Ansuan (暗算, Plotting).
The official announcement of the prize is awfully Marxist (for once the low-hanging fruit can stay right where it is), but there have been other, more thoughtful responses on-line.
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By Eric Abrahamsen, October 30, 3:17p.m.
Joel Martinsen had an excellent post on Danwei yesterday about the new novel by Jia Pingwa, called Gaoxing (Happy). I haven't gotten around to picking up a copy, but I am halfway through Jia's previous masterpiece, Abandoned Capital, and absolutely loving it (more on that in the next week or two). Gaoxing is apparently the fictionalized life story of one of Jia's old childhood friends, and looks at first glance as though it might be similar to Jia's last novel, Qinqiang. We'll have to read it to see…
By Eric Abrahamsen, October 24, 7:20p.m.
