Awarded the 8th China Book Award - Yang Shuo's Selected Prose

Author: Yang Shuo (Author), Wu Zhouwen (Editor)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: This series of "Contemporary Prose" is a part of the "Hua Bai Prose Series." It selects renowned and outstanding works of prose writers since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, 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 writing. Each volume includes an introductory essay of over 10,000 words, providing a brief introduction to 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 difficult-to-understand sections.
Yang Shuo was an autodidact. Born on March 22, 1913, in Penglaizhou County, Shandong Province, he received an early education in a scholarly family, as his father was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty. At the age of six, Yang Shuo 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 for a British-owned trading company with his uncle. During this time, he studied Chinese and English independently, composed classical Chinese poetry, practiced translation, and published some of his writings in Harbin's International Herald, all in an effort to cultivate and refine his literary skills, preparing himself for a future in literary creation.
After the Japanese imperialists occupied the three provinces of Northeast China, Yang Shuo witnessed the ruthless and brutal actions of the invaders on Chinese soil, which deeply wounded his young heart. Filled with grief and indignation, he resolved to write articles and seek a path to save his homeland. Thus, in the winter of 1936, he left Northeast China and moved southward, traveling through Shanghai, Guilin, Wuhan, Yan'an, Guangzhou, and Chongqing, tirelessly advocating for the resistance against Japanese aggression. In 1942, he returned to Yan'an from the enemy-controlled areas, joined 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 the road of literary creation. In the spring of 1938, his first novel, the serial The Pulse of the Pamirs, was published in The Salvation Daily in Guangzhou and later released by the Life Publishing House in 1939. He also published several articles and reports promoting the anti-Japanese resistance in newspapers and magazines.
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 the lives of miners and farmers in rural areas and later worked as a special correspondent for Xinhua News Agency while holding positions in the army. He participated in battles such as Qingfengtan, Shijiazhuang, and the Beiping-Tianjin Campaign, fighting alongside the troops and living among 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 in Chanan County under the leadership of the Party resisting counter-revolution; and Northern Front, celebrating the heroic battles of the Jin-Cha-Bei Field Army. These works, though not fully mature and lacking in character development and plot complexity, authentically portrayed the magnificent struggles of the workers, peasants, and soldiers under the leadership of the Communist Party of China in the Anti-Japanese War and the War of Liberation, vividly depicting 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.