Hakka Literature Zen: A Conversation with Cheng Xianzhang

Author: Zeng Lingcun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: This is a "dialogue" between the author and Mr. Cheng Xianzhang, the former President of the Guangdong Literature Institute and a first-class national writer, on issues related to literature, the Hakka people, life, death, and Buddhist Zen. From the perspective of cultural criticism, the book consciously breaks the boundaries between culture and literature, as well as between history and modernity. In today's modern society where "folk" and "history" are gradually fading from our lives and literary criticism is becoming increasingly conceptualized and digitized, the author attempts to restore and clarify some truths about the Guangdong literary scene in the past half-century through the unconventional "dialogue" form, combining Mr. Cheng Xianzhang's life and creative works. At the same time, it questions the "Hakka academic field" represented by "pan-Hakka studies." Additionally, between "reality" and "nothingness," the author and Mr. Cheng Xianzhang explore "time" and "life" through mediums such as the collected world of "stations on the way to heaven." This provides readers with a unique perspective to understand Mr. Cheng Xianzhang's nearly fifty years of creative works, the history and current state of Hakka culture and Hakka studies, and the tumultuous history of the Guangdong literary scene in the past half-century.