Who are the Chinese authors your clever friends are always talking about? We've got your back and have picked out six of the best emerging writers from the Mainland.
Ge Fei 格非
Although well-known to Chinese
audiences, author Ge Fei is currently
enjoying a deserved new wave of
popularity among international
readers, with a series of translations
of his works being published in print
and online. Often credited as the
founder of contemporary literature in
China, Ge rose to prominence in the
1990s; in 2015 he was the winner of
the Mao Dun prize for his Jiangnan
trilogy, a tale of tragedy, abuse
and misdirected love in 1950s
China. His surreal novella A Flock
of Brown Birds is being published in
translation by Penguin this year, the
first of his novels to be published in
English. An English translation of his
social comedy The Invisibility Cloak
will also be out in October.
‘In many ways, he’s the writer’s
writer, and his writing has a beautiful
exploration of the unreliability of
memory and the disorientation
of life,’ says Jo Lusby, managing
director of Penguin Random
House, North Asia. ‘Ge Fei is just a
wonderful talent who came to the
fore in the 1980s and who is highly
relevant to today’s readers.’
Liu Cixin 刘慈欣
Nine-time winner of the Galaxy
Award for Chinese science fiction
writing, Liu Cixin began receiving
acclaim for his work in the early
1990s. One of China’s most popular
domestic science fiction authors,
the first volume in his Three Body
trilogy has been translated into
English, opening his works to a
new group of readers, and is the
subject of a (much delayed but
highly anticipated) film adaptation.
In August 2015 it attracted
international attention by becoming
the first novel in translation ever to
win a Hugo award. The second book
in the series, The Dark Forest, was
released in English last year.
‘One person I’m very interested
in now is Liu Cixin,’ says author Jeff
Wasserstrom. ‘I’ve read The Three
Body Problem, which was great, and
its sequel, which was also good, and
am eagerly waiting for the final book
in the trilogy to be translated.’
Liu Zhenyun 刘震云
The complexities and politics of
modern China are the themes
that inspire Henan-born writer
Liu Zhenyun, author of several
translated novels and short stories.
Writing about Chinese society from
the top to the bottom, his award winning
novel My Name is Liu Yuejin,
(currently only available in Chinese)
tells the story of a migrant worker who has his bag and all his worldly possessions stolen in Beijing, while
Cell Phone focuses on the other end
of society through popular, wealthy
TV presenter Yan Shouyi.
Liu’s more recent story I Did Not
Kill My Husband – a satirical romp
with a thinly veiled attack on China’s
one-child policy
– was translated
in 2014. A couple
expecting their
second child come
up with a convoluted
and improbable
plan to divorce and
remarry, in order to
get around China’s
one-child policy.
After the divorce
comes through, the
newly-single Liu Xuelian finds that
her ex-husband is engaged again – to
someone else.
Liu is a confident and biting
satirist, with cold humour and an
unflinching look at modern Chinese
society. English translations of I Did
Not Kill My Husband and Cell Phone
are available now on Amazon.
Ren Xiaowen 任晓雯
Author of two novels, The Women
and On the Island, Ren Xiaowen’s
unusual fictional style combines
a deep knowledge of traditional
Chinese literature with her practical
approach to life (she
trained as a journalist
before founding her
own tea business,
then finally settled into
fiction writing).
Her novel The
Women follows a
group of young women
through the dark back
streets of Shanghai
who eventually turn to
crime and prostitution
to make ends meet. It’s not as bleak
as it sounds though; there is plenty
of dark humour and wry expression
about the book and its juxtaposition
of the glossy growth of 1980s
Shanghai, where the tale is set, and
its dark underworld of those without
any financial grounding lends it
weight throughout.
Sadly none of her novels have yet
been translated into English, but
it’s surely only a matter of time. The
Chinese edition of her short story On
The Balcony is available on Amazon
priced at 8.99USD.
Xia Jia夏笳
Science fiction writer Xia Jia, real
name Wang Yao, is well qualified
to write about science fiction.
The Shaanxi-born writer studied
physics at Peking University, and
then completed a Masters degree
on women in science fiction films,
before taking on a PhD on the topic
of Chinese science fiction and
cultural politics. Alongside this
impressive academic canon, she
began writing short stories on – what
else? – science fiction, winning her a
host of accolades including China’s
most prestigious science fiction
award the Chinese Galaxy Award.
In English translation, she has
been published in Clarkesworld,
Nature, and Upgraded, including the
dark short story A Hundred Ghosts
Parade Tonight; the story of a human
girl who is the only mortal living on an
eerie street of ghosts.
Yan Ge 颜歌
Chengdu-born Yan Ge, whose real
name is Dai Yuexing, is a rising, lively
and exciting new force in Chinese
literary circles. While her early work
focused on gods and ghosts, her
recent novels fall into the realist
fiction genre – and are almost
always set in her homelands of
western China.
Her latest novel The Chili Bean
Paste Clan is based in a fictional
Sichuan town where a host of
middle-aged siblings are reunited for
their grandmother’s 80th birthday.
The plot reads rather like a soap
opera; amid the festivities are
secrets, lies, affairs, pregnancies,
heart attacks and questioned
parentage (not necessarily in that
order). By the time the birthday itself
arrives, all manner of scandals
have arisen.
Yan’s biting humour and originality
of prose further embellish the tale
and deservedly resulted in delighted
audiences across China. The
work is due out soon in French and
German (though sadly not English),
while Chinese publication People’s
Literature magazine recently chose
Yan as one of China’s twenty future
literary masters. In the words of
translator Nicky Harman: ‘Young
Chinese women writers don’t come
much more original than this.’
