Chinese Writer Zhang Xuedong and His Fictional Features

Abstract

This article analyzes the fiction of the contemporary Chinese writer Zhang Xuedong (b. 1972). As a prominent representative of Ningxia literature, which is also attributed to the literature of North-Western China, he is ready to present his literature on the world stage. In the last twenty years, the writer published more than one hundred short stories, several dozen stories and six novels. In his texts, Zhang Xuedong constantly strives to search for new themes, forms, genres and linguistic means and is inclined towards the description of history with a critical and deep rethinking of the events of the past. The heroes of his stories are usually suffering women, embittered adolescents, lonely middle-aged people. Their misfortunes come not only from material poverty, but also from mental loneliness. This topic is exacerbated by the conflict between the town and the countryside. Due to the motive of the contradiction inherent in the writer's creative manner, contrasting scenes of cruelty and mercy coexist on the pages of his works, while even the most terrible scenes are often saturated with lyricism.