Writing in Turbulent Times

Chronicles the genesis and development of modern Chinese literature during the tumultuous period of radical self-awakening between the watershed literary revolution of 1917 and the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Writing in Turbulent Times is the first complete English-language translation of中国现文学三十(Thirty years of modern Chinese literature), which chronicles the genesis and development of modern Chinese literature from the literary revolution of 1917 to the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949. Providing a panoramic view of various literary genres and works produced during this tumultuous period by such prominent writers as Lu Xun, Guo Moruo, and Ba Jin, the book traces how homegrown calls for innovation combined with the active reception of foreign literary trends led to the modern literary rebirth of China. In vivid detail, the book portrays how the intimate and often contradictory confluences of domestic and global literary cultural forces, forged through ink and ideology, further fueled the epochal shifts in that era, contributing to the dynamic formation of modern Chinese identities. Written by three of the most distinguished Chinese scholars of modern Chinese literature, the book offers a mainland Chinese scholarly perspective on this period of radical self-awakening, one that has been, until recently, relatively understudied in Anglophone scholarship.