The third Ningbo Literature Week：Seminar on Provincial Children’s Literature was held in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province on Oct. 31, 2015. The regular organization of various literature weeks plays a significant role in promoting literary creation and expanding literature communication. 

 

“Since the 1990s, Chinese society and culture have changed drastically. The resultant new social, historical and epochal contexts have brought important, profound changes to Chinese literature,” noted Li Jingze, vice-president of the China Writers Association.

Li made the remarks at the first “Forum on Contemporary Chinese Culture: Global Pattern and Chinese Creation—Symposium on Literature over the Past 15 Years in the New Century” that was held in Shanghai recently.

The first dozen years of the 21st century witnessed the establishment of a good many literary research institutions and groups, the regular organization of various literature weeks and reading parties, and the roaring development of literary theory and criticism. As an indispensable part of literary activities, they play a significant role in influencing social and cultural thought, promoting literary creation and expanding literature communication, scholars said. 
 

Especially in traditional media and on the Internet, a huge amount of reviews on books, films and dramas as well as comments on literary phenomena have brought into being a variety of literary discussions, said Sun Ganlu, vice-president of Shanghai Writers Association, adding that these public literary activities have provided a vast platform for the development of literature in the 21st century.
 

After critically receiving the experience of literature in the 1980s and 1990s, Chinese narrative literature in the new century has so far undergone “relatively remarkable changes,” said Wang Hongsheng, a professor from the School of Humanities at Tongji University in Shanghai.

Wang said that it is hardly possible to write about Chinese people, life in China and Chinese history under the guidance of simplistic thought in an age of diverse ideas. This has presented an opportunity for exploring the Chinese experience in depth and expressing its richness and complicated potential, he said.
 

“Literature in the new century is vigorous and worth researching because it goes beyond the so-called pure literature field that was discussed over and over again previously,” Li said.
 

Today, science and technology are closely related to people’s lives not only changing people’s lifestyles, but also touching many complicated, subtle parts of their hearts. Radically changing technological and social environments can normally provide literary producers with new perspectives and elements for creation, so more and more writers from different knowledge backgrounds and with diverse experience and resources have emerged, Li said.
 

“There is a particularly conspicuous phenomenon in the current literary circle,” Sun pointed out. Many young writers, especially those born in the 1970s and 1980s, engage in both writing and literary translation. The works they have translated not only include novels and poetry but also literary criticism. They are not only excellent writers and poets but also outstanding translators.
Sun said that this phenomenon is delightful. It reflects the overall improvement in writers’ literary qualities, which has become inseparable from the popularization of higher education and all kinds of specialized professional training in recent years, he added.
 

With a true understanding of the plight of the contemporary world and a yearning for justice and happiness, Chinese literature has returned to the pursuit of the meaning of life since the beginning of the new century. Wang said that the sense of absurdity and nihilism brought about by modernist literature have been turned into more realistic and broad thinking.

At the same time, under the influence, enlightenment and impact of the massive quantity of translated literature, the quality and expressive capacity of modern Chinese language have evolved positively, but the Chinese appeal has also suffered major losses. Nonetheless, Wang said, “Many signs show that the awareness of writing in the mother tongue has been raised to an unprecedented level since the new century began, be it veteran writers or novices.”

Chinese people are full of confidence in the charm and promise of Chinese language and characters, which is rather favorable to the recreation of Chinese culture and to cultural exchange and equal dialogue in the age of globalization, Wang said.
 

He Yanhong, director of the Center for Contemporary Chinese Literary and Cultural Research at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, said that since the start of the new century, Chinese literature has not only embraced a good number of noteworthy writers and works but also there are many really important cultural phenomena that deserve researchers’ analysis and interpretation by changing their consciousness of problems and research methodologies.

“These ongoing literary activities, whether discourse, expression, aesthetic style, or language change, should be special concerns of the literary and academic communities,” He said.
“Massive amounts of content in literature of the new century have yet to be absorbed. They hold tremendous possibility and creativity,” Li said.

 

 

Li Yu is a reporter at the Chinese Social Sciences Today.