Book Review: A New Literary History of Modern China

Book Review: A New Literary History of Modern China

The latest work of David Wang, one of the leading scholars in the field of modern and contemporary Chinese-language literature, offers much food for thought. Above all, it gives us a new perspective for the analysis and study of Chinese literature of the last four centuries. This volume is the product of a big and daring collective enterprise. Its more than a thousand densely-written pages were brought into being by more than 140 scholars and writers from all over the world. Its highly varied essays (around 160) are dedicated to significant literary and historical subjects, and also to forms of expression usually neglected as “less significant.” The book touches on numerous aspects of Chinese history from the years immediately preceding the beginning of the Qing dynasty (1644 -1911) up until the present. It is at once clear from the table of contents that the book is the result of an entirely original approach compared to standard literary histories, with their chapters on authors, movements, and works in an exclusively chronological order. A New Literary History of Modern China unfolds the literary history of the last four centuries along two tracks that sometimes run parallel, sometimes cross, sometimes entwine: in addition to important authors, events, works and movements treated in chronological order, the volume includes meetings, dates, and minor events related to historical phenomena that are central to literary history.