"Historical Dictionary of Modern Chinese Literature" by Li-hua Ying - Part 31 pot

(The First Snow), Yige nüren de aiqing guan (A Woman’s Perspective on Love), and Shengjing zhi tapian (The Rubbings of the Bible). Her essays express her love of Mother Nature, her sentimental attachment to the homeland, her appreciation of the value of life, and her persistent inquiry into the meaning of existence. In her works, the Chinese hu- manistic tradition and the Christian ideal of compassion are seamlessly blended, giving her prose a high degree of cultural refinement and uni- versal appeal and making Zhang one of the best prose writers in modern Chinese literature. In addition to her famous prose work, Zhang has written plays, in- cluding He shi bi (Mr. He’s Jade) and Wuling ren (The Man from Wul- ing), and acted in them. She has also published several collections of short stories, including Hong shoupa (Red Handkerchief) and Mei lan zhu ju (Plum, Orchid, Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum). See also SPO- KEN DRAMA; WOMEN. ZHANG XIGUO, A.K.A. CHANG HSI-KUO, CHANG SHI-KUO (1944– ). Fiction writer. Born in Chongqing, Sichuan, Zhang Xiguo moved to Taiwan in 1949 with his parents. He studied electrical engineer- ing at National Taiwan University, which eventually brought him to the United States in 1966. He has taught engineering and computer science at the University of Illinois, Cornell University, and the University of Pitts- burgh, while also turning out a great many novels. Considered the best science fiction writer writing in Chinese, Zhang has produced a large number of works that make liberal use of his background in science and technology. The crown of his writing career rests on the series called Youzi hun (Soul of the Émigré), which includes Xiangjiao ch- uan (Banana Boat) and Buxiu zhe (The Incorruptible). The series consists of 12 stories, each of which is an experiment in form. Other works include Kongzi zhi si (The Death of Confucius), Qi wang (The Chess King), and Rang weilai deng yi deng ba (Let the Future Wait). Often mentioned in the company of Hong Kong science fiction writer Ni Kuang, whose stories aim at entertainment by focusing on plot development and the use of high- tech props, Zhang is thought to be much more serious in his attempts to tackle issues of great importance to humanity, even though his characters reside in an imaginary and alien world. Many of his novels can be read as critiques of Chinese history and society. ZHANG XIN (1954– ). Fiction writer. A member of the Guangzhou Liter- ary Writing and Research Institute and a graduate of the Writers Work- 272 • ZHANG XIGUO, A.K.A. CHANG HSI-KUO, CHANG SHI-KUO shop at Beijing University, Zhang Xin began publishing short stories and novellas in the late 1970s. A popular writer whose work depicts life and work of women, mostly professional women in the southern coastal cities, Zhang has received several awards for her stories and her collec- tion of novellas. Buyao wen wo cong nali lai (Don’t Ask Me Where I Come From) has won the Lu Xun Literature Award. Among her other publications are Ai you ruhe (What about Love), “Fuhua beihou” (Be- hind the Glamour), “Touru juese” (Getting into the Role), “Yongyuan de paihuai” (The Everlasting Hesitation), and “Juefei ouran” (Certainly Not Coincidence), all romantic tales of young women in contemporary urban China. See also WOMEN. ZHANG XINXIN (1953– ). Fiction and prose writer. Born in Nanjing, Zhang Xinxin grew up in Beijing in a military family. She has worked at a number of jobs including farmworker, soldier, nurse, television anchor, and theater director. Her literary career began in the early 1980s while she was a student at the Central Institute of Theater. She has been living in the United States since 1988. Zhang’s best-known work is the oral histories she and Sang Ye col- lected from their interviews of people of different social backgrounds, ranging from a professional basketball player to a former prostitute. Her style of writing has shifted from a subjective voice venting frustrations about men and society in her early stories, to that of a storyteller who enjoys weaving complicated tales such as “Wan yihui zuoze de baxi” (Playing a Thief’s Game), to a narrative mode devoid of the authorial voice as in the oral histories. In recent years, Zhang has written mostly nonfiction, including a book based on her experience working for the Voice of America entitled Wo zhidao de meiguo zhiyin (The Voice of America That I Know). See also WOMEN. ZHANG YUERAN (1982– ). Fiction writer. Born in Ji’nan, Shandong Province, Zhang Yueran majored in English and law at Shandong Uni- versity and studied computer science at National Singapore University. One of the post-1980s generation, Zhang began writing at a young age. After Mengya (Sprouts), a literary journal for young readers, published her stories, she became a popular teen writer. Winner of several awards including the Singapore Undergraduate Literature Prize (second place), Zhang has attracted the attention of mainstream literary journals and newspapers as well as established writers such as Mo Yan, who wrote the preface for one of her books. ZHANG YUERAN • 273 Zhang’s best-known work is Yintao zhi yuan (The Distance of Cherry), a sentimental, coming-of-age novel about two girls who grow up together and who experience friendship, love, and death. Hong xie (A Red Shoe), a tale of retribution, depicts the relationship between an assassin and a little girl who witnessed him murder her mother. Shi niao (The Story of the Revenge Bird) was inspired by Chinese my- thology and the author’s personal experience of the 2004 tsunami that devastated the countries bordering the Indian Ocean. The novel, set in the 17th century at the height of sea expeditions, portrays a Chinese woman who loses her memory in a tsunami as she journeys to Southeast Asia. Populated by colorful characters such as pirates, sing-song girls, eunuchs, and European missionaries, the novel creates a historical past and a South Seas landscape saturated with magic and fantasy. See also NEW GENERATION WRITERS; WOMEN. ZHANG ZAO (1962– ). Poet. One of the main representatives of the Gen- eration III poets, Zhang Zao majored in English at Hunan Teachers’ University and later received a master’s degree from Sichuan Foreign Languages Institute, where he found himself in the midst of a lively cir- cle of young poets and he began to write. Soon after he published his po- ems in 1979, Zhang was touted as one of the most gifted young poets of the time. While many of his fellow Generation III poets went southward to join the entrepreneurial frenzy, Zhang, driven by the same sense of restlessness, chose to go abroad in 1986 instead. He received his Ph.D. in comparative literature from Tubingen University in Germany, where he is now teaching. His success as a poet has much to do with his unique skill in creating aestheticism in the context of routine modern life. “Jing zhong” (In the Mirror), a short poem about beauty, idealism, memory, and regrets, is characteristic of this poetic vision. Though experimental in nature, Zhang’s poems possess a quality of elegance. His language is deceptively plain and straightforward, but his imageries jump and skip, leaving room for the reader’s imagination. His themes and images often come from classical literature, both Chinese and foreign. The poet per- sona acts as if he is an observer of these ancient literary scenes. Zhang is unique among contemporary Chinese poets in that he is conversant in several foreign languages, including English, German, French, and Russian, allowing him to have direct access to these literary traditions. Among the many awards he has received are the 1999 Anne Kao Prize 274 • ZHANG ZAO for Lyric Poetry and the 1998–1999 Poetry Prize sponsored by the liter- ary magazine Zuojia (Writers). ZHAO MEI (1954– ). Fiction and prose writer. Born in Tianjin, Zhao Mei received her bachelor’s degree from the Chinese Department of Nankai University. She currently works for the journal Wenxue ziyou tan (Can- did Comments on Literature). Since 1986 when her first story appeared, Zhao has published more than four collections of short stories and more than a dozen novels as well as several collections of essays. In 1998, she won the Lun Xun Literature Award for her prose work Linghun zhi guang (The Light of the Soul). Zhao has created many memorable women characters including those in her historical novels such as Wu Zetian (Empress Wu) and Gaoyang gongzhu (Princess Gaoyang), both legendary figures in Chinese history, and in fictional accounts such as Women jiazu de nüren (Women in my Family), which tells harrowing stories about the sufferings of women as well as their heroic triumphs. Another group of Zhao’s works can be characterized as romantic novels, Tianguo de lianren (Lovers of the Sky) and Shiji mo de qingren (Lovers at the Fin de Siècle) among them. Zhao’s recent novel Qiutian si yu dong ji (Autumn Dies in Winter) is unique among her publications both in style and subject matter. Unlike her previous work, which places much emphasis on plot, Qiu- tian si yu dong ji is a cerebral work that relies heavily on intellectual ruminations. The novel features several Chinese scholars who study and interpret the literary works of Milan Kundera, who is the central figure in this novel. Kundera was introduced to Chinese readers in the 1980s as a radical and innovative writer who successfully challenged the literary and intellectual establishments of the West. To Chinese intellectuals in the 1980s who were looking for ways to break away from all sorts of constraints of the past decades, Kundera was no doubt an inspiration. Merely a decade later, however, as the novel shows, such a literary and intellectual icon has become less relevant. The change in the image of Kundera mirrors the change in Chinese society. Kundera, who used to be the spiritual and intellectual anchor is no longer able to sustain Chinese intellectuals, as the idealism of the 1980s has given in to the pressures of mundane but inescapable daily life. The novel contains lengthy academic discourses on Kun- dera and his fictional characters. ZHAO MEI • 275 Zhao’s works are characterized by her unfailingly graceful language and her ability to navigate between the expansive historical landscape and the subtleties of personal emotions. ZHAO SHULI (1906–1970). Novelist. Zhao Shuli is undoubtedly the most celebrated name in the so-called potato school, a term given to writers, mostly of rural origins and active in the 1940s and 1950s, who represent peasant life in northern China with simple and straightforward language. Zhao owed much, if not all, of his success to the Chinese Communist Revolution and its professed literary policy to serve the needs of the peasants who were the backbone of its success. Zhao’s reputation was established against this political and historical background. Growing up poor in a peasant family in a village of Qinshui, Shanxi Province, Zhao had deep roots in rural life and understood its customs and traditions. As a child, he learned the Chinese classics from his grand- father, a failed Confucian scholar turned peasant, and from his father he acquired a lifelong love for Bangzi, a local opera, and the knowledge of herbal medicine. Until he attended, in 1925 at the age of 19, the Number Four Normal School of Shanxi, which was located in Changzhi, a small city close to his hometown, Zhao had lived in this agrarian society cut off from the outside world. While in Changzhi, he eagerly read progres- sive magazines such as Xin qingnian (New Youth), Xiaoshuo yuebao (Fiction Monthly), and Chuangzao zhoukan (Creation Weekly), as well as Chinese translations of books and brochures such as The A.B.C of Communism by Nicolai Bukharin and Evolution and Ethics by Thomas Huxley. Zhao joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1927. His writing career began with some stories written in imitation of Western literature, which was a typical practice in his generation shaped by the new culture of the May Fourth Movement. Influenced by Lu Xun and in response to the call of the left-wing movement to create a literature that dealt with real social issues, Zhao turned to his rural roots. Unlike most of the left- wing writers, Zhao came from the countryside and was familiar with the art forms that the country folks loved to see and hear. He argued that for progressive ideas to reach the countryside, two stumbling blocks had to be removed: the first, the old storybooks representing Confucian ethics and superstitious traditions; and the second, the prejudice among the cultural elite, who considered popular forms of folk entertainment vul- gar. His mission was to create a new literature to replace the traditional tales that, in his view, were poisoning the peasants’ minds. This new 276 • ZHAO SHULI literature had to be understood and embraced by the peasants. Unlike most of the literature at the time, which dealt with the sentiments of the educated youth in a refined language, his stories would contain the smell of the yellow earth, written in a language that the peasants, like his father, would understand. Mao Zedong’s talks at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art in 1942 helped catapult Zhao to the forefront of literature and art at the Communist base. “Xiao Erhei jiehun” (Little Erhei’s Marriage), published in 1943, is considered one of his best works. Set in the Communist-controlled Taihang Mountain area during the Sino-Japanese War, the story tells about a young peasant couple, Erhei and Xiaoqin, whose parents are opposed to their marriage because according to local superstition their fortunes do not match. In the end, love triumphs and the young couple, protected by the new marriage law, are able to wed. Encouraged by the success of the story, Zhao went on to write “Li Youcai banhua” (Rhymes of Li Youcai), in which he treats the power struggle between the landlord class and the poor peasants. In the character of Li Youcai, an awakened peasant, there is the shadow of the author’s father, also a village musi- cian. Li’s rhymed ballads represent the old form of entertainment, now fully transformed to serve the cause of the revolution. This character crystallizes the proletarian artistic enterprise envisioned by the author. “Xiao Erhei jiehun” and “Li Youcai banhua” firmly established Zhao’s position as the preeminent peasant novelist. Their successes led to the novel Li Jiazhuang de bianqian (Changes in Li Village), written in 1945, which focuses on the growth of a young peasant boy as he and his fellow villagers fight against the Japanese army and its puppets. During the 17 years between the founding of the People’s Republic of China and the Cultural Revolution, Zhao produced more short- and medium-length stories and another novel, San li wan (The Three-Mile Bend), all reflecting rural life. Although none of them reached the same level of success as his earlier stories, he was proud that his writings were in complete harmony with the party’s policies and with the progress of Chinese society. His self-confidence was shattered in 1966, however, when the storm of the Cultural Revolution swept across the country and he became a victim. Zhao Shuli was tortured and died in prison in 1970. See also SOCIALIST REALISM. ZHENG CHOUYU, A.K.A. CHENG CH’OU-YU, PEN NAMES OF ZHENG WENTAO (1933– ). Poet. Born to a military family in Ji’nan, ZHENG CHOUYU, A.K.A. CHENG CH’OU-YU, PEN NAMES OF ZHENG WENTAO • 277 Shandong Province, Zheng Chouyu moved to Taiwan with his family in 1949. After college, he worked at the Port of Jilong while pursuing his writing career. His poetry caught the attention of Ji Xian, who invited him to join the Modern Poetry Society. Zheng left Taiwan in 1968 at the invitation of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, where he received his M.A. He taught Chinese literature at Yale University from 1973 until his retirement. Zheng is known as a lyrical poet with the sensibility of a romantic wanderer, which he attributed to the trajectory of his life. His mastery of the Chinese language has also garnered widespread praises. “Cuowu” (Mistake), a love poem written in 1954, best captures his sense of rhythm and his ability to express the delicate moods and feelings of a man on a journey away from home. While Zheng is celebrated for his graceful and restrained style in deal- ing with subtle personal feelings, he is equally at home with conveying bold and unconstrained emotions. Zheng is a prolific poet and among his many poetry collections are Yibo (Legacy), Yanren xing (Journey of a Northerner), and Jimo de ren zuo zhe kan hua (A Seated Man of Soli- tude Views Flowers). Zheng sees his poetry as an expression of Con- fucian humanism, Taoist belief in the natural world, and the Buddhist practice of compassion. See also MODERN POETRY MOVEMENT IN TAIWAN. ZHENG WANLONG (1944– ). Fiction writer. Born in Heilongjiang, Zheng Wanlong spent his early childhood among the Eroqen huntsmen and gold miners in the mountains of the northeast. He moved to Beijing at the age of eight after his mother died. After graduating from Beijing Chemical Engineering School in 1963, he worked for 11 years as a technician in a fertilizer factory while writing poetry and short stories in his spare time. He was transferred to the Beijing Press in 1974 to work as an editor, an important step in his writing career. In 1980, he became a member of the Chinese Writers’ Association and began to devote himself to writing full-time. In the mid-1980s, Zheng joined the popular root-seeking movement with an article “Wo de gen” (My Roots) and with a series of stories based on the memories of his childhood encounters with life in the harsh environment of the Da Xing’an Mountains in Heilongjiang. These “strange tales from strange lands” (yi xiang yi wen) depict a world of danger and brutality, where men try to survive in the uninhabited hostile environment. Much like the world of the American Westerns, Zheng’s 278 • ZHENG WANLONG northern frontier is governed by guns, liquor, and physical might. In this primitive world, men are pitted against nature and against one another. Far away from civilization, masculine vigor is celebrated while anything that relates to the civilized society is frowned upon. Having once killed a wolf with three kicks, the hero in “Lao Bangzi jiuguan” (Old Stick’s Wineshop), a man proud of the 43 scars on his body, is feared and re- vered. To safeguard his tough-guy image, he disappears into the moun- tains so that he will be thought to have died in the wilderness hunting down animals, not from an illness, which is the real cause of his death. In these “strange lands” inhabited by mythological tribes, superstition rules alongside of sheer muscle. Customs such as worshiping a sulfu- ric smell depicted in “Huang yan” (Yellow Smoke) offer the reader a glimpse into the exotic traditions of the northern frontier. Zheng currently lives in Beijing and writes film and television scripts. ZHENG YI (1947– ). Fiction and prose writer. Before his involvement in the 1989 Tian’anmen Prodemocracy Movement forced him into exile to the United States, Zheng Yi had been known as the author of “Feng” (Maple), a story about the Cultural Revolution, and Lao jing (Old Well), a novella about a village in northern China and its persistant effort to drill for water. Lao jing was later adapted into a movie that won awards at several international film festivals. Since coming to the United States in 1993, Zheng, now an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, has turned to nonfiction writing. Hongse jinianbei (Scarlet Memorial: Tales of Cannibalism in Modern China) uncovers the dark secrets of cannibalism in Guangxi Province as a result of politically motivated policies in Guangxi during the Cultural Revolution. Zhong- guo zhi huimie: Zhongguo shengtai bengkui jinji baogao (China in Ruins: The Ecological Breakdown) describes the serious damages that industrialization and modernization, particularly mismanagement, have inflicted on China’s environment. One novel, Shen shu (Magic Tree), recounts the tumultuous state of the Chinese countryside since World War II up to the present. In the beginning of his career, Zheng was a reputed writer of scar literature, and at present he is thought to be a dissident writer known for his sharp criticisms of the Communist government. The four years he spent in a village in Shanxi as an educated youth and his later life in exile are two critical sources of influence on his thinking and writing. ZHENG YI • 279 ZHENG ZHENDUO (1898–1958). Essayist, fiction writer, translator, and editor. Born into a poor family in Yongjia, Zhejiang Province, Zheng Zhentuo graduated from the Beijing Railway Management School. When the May Fourth Movement broke out, Zheng eagerly embraced its ideals. A leading voice in the New Culture Movement, Zheng was instrumental in promoting the development of modern Chinese litera- ture. He was a founding member of several organizations, including the Literary Research Society, which advocated realism and opposed art for art’s sake, and the Minzhong Xiju She (Society of People’s Theater), which promoted spoken drama. Known for his work as editor of a vari- ety of literary journals, including the influential Fiction Monthly, which was responsible for establishing trends in modern Chinese literature, Zheng called on Chinese writers to express authentic feelings and to produce works of “blood and tears.” Zheng’s own creative work con- sists of numerous essays including those collected under the title Ouxing riji (Diary of My European Journey), written in the late 1920s during his two-year exile in France on suspicion of Communist connections, and fictional works, “Qu huo zhe de daibu” (The Arrest of the Fire-Stealer) and “Jiating de gushi” (The Tale of a Family). Among his translations are Russian fiction, Greek myths, and Indian fables. After 1949, Zheng was appointed director of the Bureau of Cultural Relics, director of the Literary Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and deputy minister of culture, among other official positions. He died in a plane crash while leading a government delegation to visit Afghani- stan and the Middle East. ZHONG LIHE, A.K.A. CHUNG LI-HO (1915–1960). Fiction and prose writer. One of the most prominent writers from rural Taiwan, Zhong received a Japanese education, and after finishing middle school, he worked briefly on his father’s farm, where he fell in love with a young farmhand. The love affair met with disapproval from his parents and the community, as the young couple shared the same surname, a significant detail that rendered their union “incestuous” according to local customs. Heartbroken, they left home, and eventually arrived on the mainland where they lived as husband and wife. When they returned to Taiwan in 1946, Zhong was already a published writer but still struggling fi- nancially. Most of Zhong’s works, based on his own ordeals, were pub- lished posthumously. These autobiographical stories, such as “Lishan nongchang” (Lishan Farms) and “Yuanxiangren” (The Native), deal 280 • ZHENG ZHENDUO with social prejudice and financial difficulties in rural Taiwan, making Zhong a pioneer in Taiwan’s nativist literary (xiangtu wenxue) move- ment. Zhong died at the age of 45 in the midst of poverty and illness. ZHONG XIAOYANG (1962– ). Fiction writer and essayist. Born in Guangzhou, Zhong Xiaoyang grew up in Hong Kong and graduated from the Film Department of the University of Michigan. She immi- grated to Australia in 1991 but moved back to Hong Kong four years later. Zhong achieved her fame at a young age, having published several books—novels, short stories, essays, and poems—by the age of 25. Like Taiwan’s Zhu Tianwen and Zhu Tianxin, whom she befriended when she went to Taipei in 1981 to accept the Unitas Literature Award for her novel Ting che zan jie wen (Stop the Car to Ask for Directions), Zhong is influenced by Zhang Ailing, whose exquisitely styled fiction captures the subtleties of modern urban life. Zhong wrote Ting che zan jie wen at the tender age of 18, but her prose is stunningly sophisticated, a result of her deep immersion in classical Chinese poetry and fiction, particularly the 18th-century novel Hong lou meng (A Dream of Red Mansions), a book that also greatly influenced Zhang Ailing. Ting che zan jie wen presents a portrait of a woman whose dream of love is thrice dashed by reality. Another novel, Yi hen chuanqi (Love in Eternal Re- gret), relates the collapse of a wealthy Hong Kong family caught in the fatal entanglement of romantic rivalry and intrigue. Published in 1996, the novel can be read as an allegory of the city’s colonial history and an expression of anxiety about the imminent British handover of Hong Kong to China. Much of Zhong’s work deals with the emotional intensities of ro- mantic relationships that end tragically, invoking the world inhabited by Zhang Ailing’s characters. In a language that is at once evocative, medi- tative, and elegant, Zhong presents a modern urban life pointedly from a woman’s perspective. While describing the agonizing consequences of a lost love, Zhong celebrates the imperfection of human destiny. Char- acterized as gothic, Zhong’s fiction is overwhelmingly concerned with the topos of decay and death, as shown by book titles such as Ran shao zhi hou (In the Wake of the Fire), a collection of short stories, and Gao mu si hui ji (Dead Wood and Burnt Ashes), a poetry collection. ZHONG ZHAOZHENG, A.K.A. CHUNG CHAO-CHENG (1925– ). Novelist. Zhong Zhaozheng was a member of the first generation of Taiwanese writers that emerged after the Japanese occupation. His ZHONG ZHAOZHENG, A.K.A. CHUNG CHAO-CHENG • 281 . midst of a lively cir- cle of young poets and he began to write. Soon after he published his po- ems in 1979, Zhang was touted as one of the most gifted young poets of the time. While many of his. well as Chinese translations of books and brochures such as The A.B.C of Communism by Nicolai Bukharin and Evolution and Ethics by Thomas Huxley. Zhao joined the Chinese Communist Party in. director of the Bureau of Cultural Relics, director of the Literary Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and deputy minister of culture, among other official positions.