Dancer on the arc

Author: Liang Xiaosheng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-03-01
Features: How Liang Xiaosheng is as a writer has long been recognized in various common ways. This Is a Miraculous Land, Blizzard Tonight, Snow City, and Tree Rings made him the founder of "sent-down youth literature"; Father, Mother, Younger Brother, Mid-Autumn Again, Black Button, and White Hair Pin established him as a representative author of "family romance"; while works like Elected, Right to Silence, Archives, Speaking, and Death of a Scholar are his powerful mid-length novels that confront reality with profound depth, proving his unwavering commitment to literary realism—so much so that 1984 was once called the "Year of Liang Xiaosheng." Consequently, when a newspaper publicly ranked the "Top Ten Writers Who Touch China," Liang Xiaosheng was included on the list. Thus, he is called a "commoner writer." And he is hailed as "China's Balzac."
Whether these evaluations are appropriate or not, and regardless of Liang Xiaosheng's own thoughts—none of us hesitated to decide to publish a selected collection of his mid-length novels. We also believe that many readers certainly expect such a decision from a publisher to fulfill their desire to understand the full scope of Liang Xiaosheng's mid-length fiction. When we actually began this task with the author's cooperation, we were indeed surprised—never expecting that in two decades, he had written over sixty mid-length novels! In terms of quantity, he is undoubtedly one of the most prolific authors of mid-length fiction in contemporary Chinese literature. And in terms of the breadth of themes and diversity of styles, he is truly remarkable. In his mid-length novels, from intellectuals to college students, workers, peasants, police officers, and criminals, as well as various female characters from different eras—countless figures come together to form a literary "River Scene at Qingming" depicting Liang Xiaosheng's portrayal of Chinese society.
Or perhaps, when editing these mid-length novels of Liang Xiaosheng, we truly recalled Balzac's La Comédie Humaine. The writer Liang Xiaosheng once described himself as an "author standing on an arc" in one of his creative discussions, using the "arc" to symbolize the humanistic quality and stance of literature. Therefore, we also used his own words as the title of this collection of mid-length novels—Dancers on the Arc. In our view, that "arc" is also composed of the squares of the manuscript paper. He is one of the few writers in China today who still to write by hand, and the pen is his only dance partner. On the "arc" formed by the squares of the manuscript paper, this writer still tirelessly observes reality, still tirelessly dances—dancing.