Selected Prose of Yang Shuo: Baihua Prose Series · Contemporary Prose Series

Author: Yang Shuo
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-11-01
Features: This "Contemporary Prose Series" is a part of the "Hua Bai Prose Series." It selects renowned masterpieces of prose by writers from 1949 onwards, organized into individual volumes dedicated to each author. The selected authors are all famous prose writers of that era, and the works are carefully chosen to reflect the development of each author's prose style. Each volume begins with an extensive critical preface exceeding 10,000 words, briefly introducing the author's life and analyzing and evaluating their artistic characteristics, creative development, and influence, in conjunction with the selected works. The selected works are annotated with their original publication sources and dates where possible; necessary notes are also provided for particularly challenging passages.
Yang Shuo was an autodidact. Born on March 22, 1913, in Pengla County, Shandong Province, he was raised in a scholarly household as his father was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty. At the age of six, he lost his father. After completing primary school, due to financial hardship, he could not continue his education and went to Harbin in 1929 to work at a British-owned trading company with his uncle. During this time, he studied Chinese and English independently, composed classical poems, practiced translation, and published some writings in Harbin's International Herald, all to cultivate and hone his literary skills, preparing himself for a future in literary creation.
After the Japanese imperialists occupied the three provinces of Northeast China, he witnessed the invaders' ruthless and brutal actions on Chinese soil, which deeply wounded his young heart. Determined to write articles and seek a path to save his homeland, he left Northeast China in the winter of 1936 and moved southward. He wandered through Shanghai, Guilin, Wuhan, Yan'an, Guangzhou, and Chongqing, tirelessly advocating for the resistance against Japan. In 1942, he returned to Yan'an from the enemy-occupied areas, attended the Central Party School to study Marxism-Leninism, and participated in the Yan'an Rectification Movement. In 1945, he joined the Communist Party of China. From then on, Yang Shuo devoted himself to the revolutionary cause.
During his search for the path of revolution, he also embarked on his literary career. In the spring of 1938, his first novel, the serial The Pulse of the Pamirs, was published in Guangzhou's Salvation Daily and later released by the Life Publishing House in 1939. He also published some essays and reports in newspapers. After maturing from a passionate patriotic youth into an proletarian revolutionary fighter, Yang Shuo consciously followed the path for literary workers as guided by Comrade Mao Zedong's Talk at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art, clarifying the direction of art serving the workers, peasants, and soldiers. He immersed himself in mining and rural life, later working as a special correspondent for Xinhua News Agency and holding military positions, participating in battles such as Qingfengtan, Shijiazhuang, and the Beiping-Tianjin Campaign. He fought alongside the troops, experiencing life with the commanders and soldiers. During this period, he wrote three novels: Red Stone Mountain, depicting the heroic struggle of workers at the Longyan Mine against the Japanese; Gazing South Mountain, describing the peasants of Cixian County under the Party's leadership resisting counter-revolution; and Northern Front, celebrating the bravery of the Jin-Cha-Bei Field Army. These works, though not yet fully mature and lacking in character development or plot complexity, vividly portrayed the magnificent struggles of the working-class, peasant, and soldier masses under the leadership of the Communist Party of China in the Anti-Japanese War and the War of Liberation, and skillfully depicted the heroic figures and their new spiritual realms.
This book includes nearly 40 essays such as Comrade Captain, Hua Bai Mountain, and Sea of Mirages.