Xue Mili
Xue Mili ( Chinese 雪 米莉 ) is a pseudonym under which a group of Chinese writers published entertainment literature in the late 1980s .
First publications
Under the pseudonym Xue Mili, a work was first published in 1987 by the Beijing publishing house Huaxia chubanshe . The adventure novel Female Courier (original title: 女 带 家 , Nü daijia ) about two young women from Hong Kong who worked as drug smugglers and agents, was a great commercial success. Within a few months, a number of other novels appeared under this pseudonym. Readers assumed that due to the content of the stories, the note "from Hong Kong" on the cover and the woman's name Mili, it must be a writer from Hong Kong. It was not until March 1989 that it became known that Xue Mili was a pseudonym behind which was not a single female author, but a whole group of young, male authors led by Tian Yanning and Tan Li from Sichuan , who had written the works in a division of labor.
The identity of the authors becomes known
In an interview published in 1990, the authors known as Xue Mili stated that they chose the pseudonym in response to the preferences of the Chinese book market. Since literature from Europe, America, Taiwan and Hong Kong sold particularly well after the end of the Cultural Revolution , they had chosen to use the term “from Hong Kong” and their success had proven them right. They also cited the fact that well-known Chinese writers such as Lu Xun had repeatedly published under changing pseudonyms when this helped to sell their writings.
Public debate
The discovery of the identity of the authors behind the pseudonym Xue Mili not only triggered a broad social response due to the great popularity of the novels, it also held up a mirror to the development of the Chinese book market: Why did foreign authors sell better than established writers in the People's Republic? And why are established authors ashamed to publish popular literature under their names? The Xue Mili scandal highlighted the impact of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms on the Chinese book market and on the increasingly precarious situation of writers. In retrospect, the science fiction author Han Song also highlighted a positive effect of the Xue Mili volumes: Their success had encouraged science fiction authors, among other things, to publish literature that pursues neither political nor educational goals, but pure entertainment serve.