China: A Traveler's Literary Companion (Traveler's Literary Companions) Paperback – Illustrated, May 28, 2008

This book was published in 2008 and contained 12 modern works by as many writers. There were 10 short stories and two excerpts from novels. Ten of the writers were from mainland China, and there was one each from Hong Kong and Taiwan.The oldest writers were Lu Xun (1881-1936), Mao Dun (1896-1981), Shen Congwen (1902-88) and Xiao Hong (1911-42). The youngest were Wang Shuo (1958-), Yan Lianke (1958-), Taiwan's Chu T'ien-hsin (1958-), and Alai (1959-). Other writers included Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang) (1920-85), Wang Anyi (1954-) and Mo Yan (1955-). Five of the writers were women. Virtually all of the writers were Han Chinese, except for Alai, an ethnic Tibetan/Hui Muslim from central China. The tale by Shen Congwen, a Han Chinese writer with some ethnic Miao ancestry, retold a folktale from a minority ethnic group.The settings of the stories ranged from Beijing in the north and Heilongjiang Province in Manchuria in the northeast, to Hong Kong in the south. And from Sichuan Province in the center to Shanghai and Zhejiang Province in the east. Practically speaking, this reader was able to distinguish mainly between those with urban settings in mainland China and overseas, those in the countryside, and one set in the wilds of central China.The early stories ranged from the 1920s to the 40s, from sensitive psychological realism (Lu Xun, Zhang Ailing) and naturalism (Xiao Hong) to a folktale (Shen Congwen) and plodding social realism (Mao Dun).For the period between the mid-1940s and mid-1980s, nothing was included. The later stories ranged from the 1980s to 2003. Here there was realism (Wang Shuo) -- sometimes with symbolic overtones (Mo Yan, Yan Lianke) -- descriptions of nature approaching surrealism (Alai), and fragmented and confusing postmodern narratives from writers outside the mainland (Xi Xi, Chu T'ien-hsin).Among the themes in the older stories were the gap in values and behavior between the peasants and intelligentsia, the dislocation and suffering caused by economic exploitation and war, and disaffected individuals' haphazard search for happiness. And in the later stories, the distortions of people's behavior caused by political power, urban life in the modern world, the loss of old values amid rapid change, and problems of cultural identity.For me, the most distinctive writing was found in the cinematic, perceptive story-telling of Zhang Ailing, the cynical behavior and dialogue of urban lowlifes described by Wang Shuo, the stark symbolism and dark behavior in the work of Mo Yan and Yan Lianke, and the borderline surrealism of Alai.In my opinion, the book could've selected a much more powerful story by Xiao Hong showing the oppressive conditions faced by the poor in the city and country ("Hands" or "The Death of Wang Asao"). And it's too bad nothing could be included by Lao She, an important early modern writer of ironic and humorous stories, many of them set among the townspeople of Beijing.The book might be best if you're looking for a light, varied introduction to writers from China. Longer, more in-depth anthologies of modern Chinese lit include Twentieth-Century Chinese Stories (1971), Modern Chinese Stories and Novellas, 1919-1949 (1981), Worlds of Modern Chinese Fiction: Short Stories and Novellas from the People's Republic, Taiwan and Hong Kong (1991), New Ghosts, Old Dreams: Chinese Rebel Voices (1992), Running Wild: New Chinese Writers (1994), Chairman Mao Would Not Be Amused: Fiction from Today's China (1995), China's Avant-Garde Fiction: An Anthology (1998), and the massive Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature (1995; 2nd edition 2007), all published in the United States. An English-language anthology published in China is The Time Is Not Yet Ripe: Contemporary China's Best Writers and Their Stories (1991).

This is a wonderful collection of stories. The wise selections cover a lot of ground, both stylistically and geographically. "The Floating City" is a sharply written and translated allegory of the recent history of Hong Kong. Mo Yan's "The Old Gun" is a beautifully and sensuously rendered tale that takes place during the floods of the early sixties when many children in Shandong were starving. The boy protagonist's surprising and violent past leads to his violent end. There's so much inevitability in the dramatic events of this story that it's poignant. A classic.