Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 9, 2023

 

The Modernization Narrative of Rural China: From Native-Soil Literature to “New Native-Soil Literature”

(Abstract)

 

Wang Yao

 

Native-soil or earthbound China literature (xiangtu wenxue) and rural China are closely related. Examining the two against the background of China’s modernization construction will help to sort out the progress from native-soil literature to “new native-soil literature” in the modern narrative framework of rural China. This reveals the basic characteristics, value judgments and aesthetic methods of “new native-soil literature.” “New rural China” refers to rural China in the process of modernization, with the ultimate goal of completing the transformation of rural China through the Chinese path to modernization; only when rural China experiences an essential change do new discoveries and new writings produce “new native-soil literature,” in a dynamic process； “new native-soil literature” participates in the narrative of modernization in an aesthetic way, presenting the richness and complexity of “new rural China,” and the new changes in rural China generate new requirements for “new native-soil literature.” This literature calls for the activation of historical experience and reflection of the spirit of the times, so as to create works with excellent intellectual and artistic qualities and the spirit of the times.