Top 50 Chinese Novels: The Golden Age

Author: Wang Xiaobo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-10-01
Features: Over the span of more than 20 years, several generations of writers with vastly different concepts, experiences, and mindsets have emerged, as have countless works with diverse themes, narratives, and styles. The selected works in The 50 Best Chinese Novels (1978-2000) included in this collection bear witness to this observation being far from baseless. Chinese writers, constrained by historical traditions and contemporary realities, have seen the evolution of fiction and its concepts inseparable from these traditions and realities. Around the 1970s, novels began to reflect a pursuit and character distinct from the homogenous era. As a form of imaginative and fictional writing, it gradually shed its singular political objectives and the emphasized didactic function. Issues related to human nature, such as inner suffering, emotional needs, and intellectual conflicts, began to be reflected and depicted in fiction.