Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.3, 2023

 

When Returnees Do Not Leave Again: On Qiao Ye’s Baoshui Village

(Abstract)

 

Yang Qingxiang

 

Rural themed works constitute a major writing type in modern and contemporary Chinese literature. Qiao Ye’s latest novel Baoshui Village is a representative work in this spectrum. Analysis of Baoshui Village provides a glimpse of the new changes in China’s rural writing. By reconstructing emotional and economic rational links, returnees and settlers have developed new connections with the countryside, thus promoting modernization of the rural areas via interaction. Baoshui Village reforms the modern literary tradition pioneered by classic writers such as Lu Xun that “returnees” are destined to depart again. Today, “returnees” no longer leave, but take solid root in the countryside to fulfill their harmony with the rural world.