Xungen literature

Xungen literature ( Chinese  尋根 文學  /  寻根 文学 , Pinyin xúngēn wénxué ), also known as root literature or literature of the search for roots , is a literary trend that emerged in the People's Republic of China in the second half of the 1980s. The roots of Chinese civilization were sought in the peasantry and analyzed using new methods. This retrospective literary current broke through officially sanctioned realism and current political rhetoric.

development

When the reform and opening-up policies aroused general disappointment with the Chinese Communist Party , writers began looking for flaws that extended beyond the political system. This avoids a direct debate on political issues. At the same time, the literature on root search is to be seen as a reaction to the scar literature . Xungen literature asks about the historical and cultural foundation that made undesirable developments such as the cultural revolution possible in the first place. The examination of literature with its own tradition benefited from the increased absorption of Western literature and Freudian psychoanalysis . Western storytelling techniques, such as those of magical realism , shape the works known as Xungen literature. Sun also became Gabriel García Márquez to a new literary model.

With The "roots" of literature ( Chinese  文學 的 "根"  /  文学 的 "根" , Pinyin wénxué de gēn ) Han Shaogong wrote an article that pioneered this literary movement in 1985, in which he placed the Chinese identity at the center of consideration. The Xungen literature tries not only to find the Chinese identity, but also the identity of the individual. This retrospective literary movement is not only a revival of the peasant literature of early communist writers, but a way of literary liberation from ideological guidelines and deeply rooted thought patterns.

Characteristics

The Xungen literature has no didactic function and rejects the concept of the peasant as a political category. In retrospecting the peasantry as the cornerstone of culture, she returns to a fundamental understanding of her own civilization in order to overcome it. With the help of elements from local literature and modernist narrative techniques, diverse narratives were created. Her focus is also on the literary process itself. Self-reflective literary work, anachrony, multiple perspectives, pronounced language awareness can be named among other things as characteristics of the Xungen literature. The works of Xungen literature are also characterized by their complexity and strong differences from one another.

Authors who contributed to the Xungen literature

• Ah Cheng
• Can Xue
• Deng Yi
• Deng Youmei
• Feng Jicai
• Han Shaogong
• Mò Yán
• Ma Yuan
• Wang Zengyi
• Wang Anyi
• Zhen Wanlong

literature

• Chen Sihe 陈思 和: Zhongguo dangdai wenxue guanjianci shijiang 中国 当代文学 关键词 十 讲 [Ten remarks on key points in contemporary Chinese literature]. Shanghai 上海: Fudan Daxue Chubanshe 复旦大学 出版社, 2002.
• Fireworks, Yi-tsi Mei: Ideology, power, text. self-representation and the peasant "other" in modern Chinese literature . Stanford, Calif .: Stanford University Press, 1998.
• Vlcek, Denise: Literature that plants roots . Univ. Vienna: Unpublished. Dipl.-Arb., 1995.