Writing Ethics and Social Justice in the Works of Chan Hokei and Seicho Matsumoto

Abstract

Chan Hokei is the leader of the young generation of Hong Kong writers, known as "the first Chinese reasoning". Through intricate storytelling and realistic settings, he portrays the complexity of human nature and the injustices and conflicts in Hong Kong society. His detective novels focus on the challenges individuals face within the social environment and delve into people's struggles with moral and ethical choices. Seicho Matsumoto, the founder of the Japanese social school of deduction, has a simple and heavy writing style. He is good at exposing the roots of modern Japan's illnesses with realistic strokes. His creative concepts deeply influence a group of later generations of deduction novelists. Although Chan Hokei and Seicho Matsumoto lived in different times, regions and cultural conditions, they both paid great attention to social conflicts and the social roots of crime, and their works contain a unique and common writing ethic. Their works inspire readers to consider ethical morals and social justice issues and call for positive societal changes. This paper attempts to interpret this phenomenon and explore how the writing ethic in the works of the two authors is related to social justice, how they promote social justice through their writing and how their writing ethic is influenced by social justice.