Chinese Exilic Intellectual: Escaping from Collectivism

Abstract

During the 1960s and late 1980s, Chinese modern history is full of turbulence and controversy. Chinese exilic intellectuals who chose to flee to overseas during this period bore the weight of private tragedy, historical trauma, and political disputes, which, more or less, is mirrored in their writings. And encountering a profoundly ambivalent, marginal, and “unhealable” condition, Chinese exilic intellectuals fit the notion of metaphoric exile in Said’s sense. However, unlike the exilic intellectuals in the contexts of postcolonialism or imperialism, they on the one hand, voluntarily self-exile themselves from the Chinese collective consciousness to pursue individualism; on the other hand, “Chineseness,” as an indispensable element, is deeply inscribed in their writing with particular nostalgia. Thus, it is unlikely to categorize Chinese exilic intellectuals into any existing theories regarding exile while the understanding of exile should be extended and reconsidered.