Reading Memories in the Drizzle

This vignette presents Yu Hua´s novel from 1991 and analyses two different interpretations of the novel with fifteen years between them written by the same prominent critic, Chen Xiaoming. The first interpretation was written in 1992 when China was in the early stages of economic reform. The second was written in 2007 when deep-going social changes had affected the life of the individual. By comparing these two essays, I aim to show how a literary text may act as a catalyst for bringing out existential issues at stake at a particular point in time.

Recovering a Lost Voice: Su Tong’s and Yu Hua’s Cathartic Fiction

Odzyskiwanie utraconego głosu: katartyczna proza Su Tonga i Yu Hua Rewolucja kulturalna pozostawiła w pamięci Chińczyków wyraźne blizny i wywarła głęboki wpływ na chińską literaturę, szczególnie na utwory napisane przez przedstawicieli pokolenia, które osobiście doświadczyło jej ekscesów. Yu Hua w powieści Żyć! oraz Kroniki sprzedawcy krwi i Su Tong w powieści Binu zmagają się z cierpieniem i traumami związanymi z chińską historią. Próbując przezwyciężyć traumę, czerpią oni z tradycji literatury oralnej w poszukiwaniu nowych, linearnych, spójnych, a czasem nawet optymistycznych narracji o przeszłych doświadczeniach zwykłych ludzi, którzy otrzymują szansę stworzenia własnych opowieści, przeciwstawiających się dominującemu dyskursowi historiograficznemu. Teoria oralności Waltera Onga oraz pojęcie kontrhistorii ukute przez Michela Foucaulta otwierają nowe możliwości dla badacza usiłującego przeanalizować i zrozumieć te utwory i ich katartyczne działanie. Uważna lektura powieści Su Tonga i Yu Hua każe również postawić pytanie o autentyczność prezentowanego w nich uleczenia z traumy i rozważyć ryzyko ich współudziału w tłumieniu traumatycznych wspomnień.

Reverse Bite and Dislocation: A Study on the Communication of Yu Hua's To Live by We Media

<p>Based on the amount of readers’ reading and clicks, the power of article creation of We Media has shifted significantly from author to reader, the market mechanism formed by the readers’ preferences bite the author’s creation space. Taking Yu Hua’s <em>To Live</em> as an example to analyze We-Media writings, it can be found that the confidence of the novel text and Yu Hua’s image have been obviously misplaced, and the space of creation and communication has been reversed. In the form of quotations for the public through consumption experience, the original text is cut and stitched together to becomes the chicken soup for the soul in the late night, and Yu Hua is portrayed as a “punster”. It is undeniable that the communication of works by We Media has the advantages that traditional media cannot reach. The techniques and social relations that We Media communication relies on are worthy of the development of traditional media.</p>

Authorial Self-Fashioning in a Global Era

The authorial preface to works of fiction provides a unique space for exploration of authorial self-fashioning and author-reader mediation. This article argues that, when works of fiction are translated and new prefaces written for a new readership, these prefaces can provide extra insights into the perceptions, expectations, and constrictions of both producing and consuming literature in a global era. Recent debates on world literature have centered mainly on issues of reception and circulation, preferring to define its scope in terms of the reader and the reading context rather than by the author or production process. This study considers the changing role of authors who consciously attempt to locate themselves within this contested and reconfigured field and how they construct a persona to address a newly defined world readership. This article explores the changes throughout the twentieth century by analyzing a selection of authorial prefaces to translated editions of three influential authors: Lu Xun 魯迅 (1881–1936), Ba Jin 巴金 (1906–2005), and Yu Hua 余華 (1960–). All prolific preface writers, they each have, in different ways, in different periods, engaged with the concept of a global literary readership and marketplace and negotiated their respective places within it.