The rise of metafiction in China

Abstract

Though it would be almost impossible to trace who first applied the term ‘Avant-Garde fiction’ (Xianfeng Xiaoshuo ) to a recent trend in Chinese fiction since 1985, it is an appropriate name in many respects. All the previous schools of fiction in modern China—Wound fiction (Shangheng Xiaoshuo ), Reform fiction (Gaige Xiaoshuo ), Re-thinking fiction (Fansi Xiaowen ), or Roots-Seeking fiction (Xungen Xiaoshuo )—received their names after their respective subject matters. The naming of Avant-Garde fiction itself seems to indicate that Chinese fiction has grown out of its thematic age to enter a new phase of life beyond themes.The earliest authors of Chinese Avant-Garde fiction—Can Xue , Ma Yuan , Hong Feng , Zhaxi Dawa , Mo Yan and others—are all based in remote areas far from the centres of modern Chinese civilization. This led some critics to the conclusion that literary modernity was at odds with modern urbanized culture. Hardly had such an argument been put forward when, towards the end of 1987, there appeared a new group of Avant-Garde writers—Su Tong with The escape of 1934 (Yijiu sansi nian de taowang— :), Sun Ganlu with The letter from the postman (Xinshi zhi han Ge Fei with The lost boat (Mizhou) and Yu Hua with One kind of reality (Xianshi yizhong)— all of them based in the Yangtze Delta, the most prosperous area of modern China. This would suggest, at least, that Chinese avant-gardism is not entirely dependent on economic-geographical conditions.