- 184 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
Yan Lianke is a world-renowned author of novels, short stories, and essays whose provocative and nuanced writing explores the reality of everyday life in contemporary China. In Sound and Silence, Yan compares his literary project to a blind man carrying a flashlight whose role is to help others perceive the darkness that surrounds them. Often described as China's most censored author, Yan reflects candidly on literary censorship in contemporary China. He outlines the Chinese state's project of national amnesia that suppresses memories of past crises and social traumas. Although being banned in China is often a selling point in foreign markets, Yan argues that there is no requisite correlation between censorship and literary quality. Among other topics, Yan also examines the impact of American literature on Chinese literature in the 1980s and 1990s. Encapsulating his perspectives on life, writing, and literary history, Sound and Silence includes an introduction by translator Carlos Rojas and an afterword by Yan.
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Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Translatorās Introduction: Carlos Rojas
- 1. He Who Has Been Selected by Heaven and Life to Appreciate Darkness
- 2. National Amnesia and Literary Memory
- 3. The Abjection of Alt-China and Its Literature
- 4. The Wild Child That Is American Literature
- 5. My Thoughts on Literary Censorship and Controversy
- 6. My Literary Review Book
- 7. The Distinctiveness of Writing in China
- 8. Fear and Betrayal Have Accompanied Me throughout My Life
- 9. Writing under a Sky of Concentrated Power and Relative Laxity
- 10. Living without Dignity but Writing with Honor
- 11. My Ideal Is Simply to Write a Novel That I Think Is Good
- 12. A Villageās China and Literature
- Afterword: Ripping Open the Dreamscape
- Biographies
- Index