Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.1, 2019 

Fostering Spiritual Creation with Magical Imagination—Experience and Inspiration From Mo Yan’s Literary Creation

(Abstract)

Zhang Zhizhong

Heavy events from his youth and sad historical memory constitute  the starting points of Mo Yan’s literary creation. However, he is not aimed to pour out suffering, rather he turns personal memory into symbolic cultural memory, endowing it with artistic imagination and spiritual creation. Mo Yan’s creative experiences include “cruelty narratives” and spiritual transcendence, reconstruction of childhood stories by imagination, critique of social reality and adherence to the nature of literature, and revelation and interrogation of characters’ souls. It provides inspiration for the problematique “transforming experiences of suffering into resources for spiritual innovation” that Chinese literature needs to solve.