Constructing Chinese Literature in the Twentieth Century: Redefining World Literature

This book examines how Chinese thinkers and writers drew on foreign literature between 1918 and 1958 in order to construct China’s independent cultural identity. By covering work by authors such as Lu Xun, Yuan Shu, Zhou Libo, Bing Xin, Ding Lin, Guo Xiaochuan, Ye Junjian, and others, this book shows how twentieth-century Chinese literature was shaped by transnational intellectual forces and movements such as imperialism, Asian regionalism, internationalism, and cosmopolitanism. While many studies on modern Chinese literature have remained within the confines of national history, this study analyses key literary writings and translations carried out by modern Chinese writers to demonstrate that the process of establishing China’s nation-state is also the process of establishing China’s interconnection to the world. This book also aims to show how foreign literary resources were borrowed, translated, mediated, and transformed in China in the period.

Ying Xiong is Associate Professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Tsinghua University, China, where she specializes in modern East Asian literature and thought, global history, and world literature. She previously served as an associate researcher at the Institute of Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and as a research fellow in the Department of History at Freie Universität Berlin, Germany. Her publications include the book Representing Empire: Japanese Colonial Literature in Taiwan and Manchuria (2014) and many journal articles.