The focus of this study is coming of age in troubled Cultural Revolutionary times as portrayed in contemporary Chinese Bildungsroman fiction by Su Tong and Yu Hua, along with a comprehensive overview of the Bildungsroman in China and the west.

This reader for advanced students of Chinese presents ten post-1990 short stories by prominent writers such as Su Tong and Yu Hua, whose novels Raise the Red Lantern and To Live served as the basis for internationally acclaimed films. With its captivating content dealing with current social issues, it fills a gap in the literature for advanced language students who are eager to read extensively in “real” literature. Vocabulary lists free the student from the chore of constantly consulting a dictionary while reading, grammar and usage examples highlight new patterns, and questions for discussion explore the literary content. This all-fiction collection of contemporary works can be used as a text in language or literature courses or can be read independently.

Hsiu-Chang Deppman puts landmark contemporary Chinese films in the context of their literary origins & explores how the best Chinese directors adapt fictional narratives & styles for film.

The focus of this study is coming of age in troubled Cultural Revolutionary times as portrayed in contemporary Chinese Bildungsroman fiction by Su Tong and Yu Hua, along with a comprehensive overview of the Bildungsroman in China and the west.

In the years since the death of Mao Zedong, interest in Chinese writers and Chinese literature has risen significantly in the West. In 2000, Gao Xingjian became the first Chinese writer to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature followed by Mo Yan in 2012, and writers such as Ha Jin and Da Sijie have also become well known in the West. Despite this progress, the vast majority of Chinese writers remain largely unknown outside of China. This book introduces the lives and works of eighty contemporary Chinese writers, and focuses on writers from the "Rightist" generation (Bai Hua, Gao Xiaosheng, Liu Shaotang), writers of the Red Guard generation (Li Rui, Wang Anyi), Post-Cultural Revolution Writers, as well as others. Unlike earlier works, it provides detailed, often first-hand, biographical information on this wide range of writers, including their career trajectories, major themes and artistic characteristics. In addition to this, each entry includes a critical presentation and evaluation of the writer’s major works, a selected bibliography of publications that includes works in Chinese, works translated into English, and critical articles and books available in English. Offering a valuable contribution to the field of contemporary Chinese literature by making detailed information about Chinese writers more accessible, this book will be of interest to students and scholars Chinese Literature, Contemporary Literature and Chinese Studies.

"... an important contribution to the study of recent Chinese literature." -- Choice "This fine, scholarly survey of Chinese literature since 1949... discusses such trends as modernism, nativism, realism, root-seeking and 'scar' literature, 'misty' poets, and political, feminist, and societal issues in modern Chinese literature." -- Library Journal This volume is a survey of modern Chinese literature in the second half of the twentieth century. It has three goals: (1) to introduce figures, works, movements, and debates that constitute the dynamics of Chinese literature from 1949 to the end of the century; (2) to depict the enunciative endeavors, ranging from ideological treatises to avant-garde experiments, that inform the polyphonic discourse of Chinese cultural politics; (3) to observe the historical factors that enacted the interplay of literary (post)modernities across the Chinese communities in the Mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and overseas.

This book examines the works of three leading writers-Su Tong, Yu Hua, and Ge Fei-and their significant contributions to the genre of Chinese avant-garde fiction.