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‘White Deer Plain’
(Chinese Social Sciences Today)
FILE PHOTO: Chen Zhongshi, author of acclaimed book White Deer Plain
Chinese writer Chen Zhongshi (1942–2016) completed White Deer Plain in 1992, for which he won the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 1997, one of the most prestigious literature prizes in China. Critics described White Deer Plain as a “realistic reflection of contemporary Chinese history.” The novel is based on the county annals of Chen’s hometown in Shaanxi Province. Chen integrated the personal lives of his characters into a grand historical background that spanned several decades—starting from the end of China’s last imperial dynasty, the Qing Dynasty (1644–1911), to the Revolution of 1911 that ended the Qing Dynasty, various warlords competing for power between the 1910s to the 1920s, the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression between 1931 and 1945, the founding of the PRC in 1949, and until 1960s’ China. The novel is a mix of magical realism and many other avant-garde writing techniques.