Telling Details: Chinese Fiction, World Literature

ISBN-13: 9781032197852 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022 / 212 str.

Jiwei Xiao

Opis

This book intensifies the dialogue between Chinese fiction and world literature by focusing on a common literary idiom, the detail.

Recenzje

"Telling Details offers nothing less than a reconceptualizing of Chinese literary modernity, bringing together late Imperial fiction, canonical twentieth-century authors, and globally recognized contemporary writers under the umbrella of the "fiction of details" as China's distinctive contribution to world literature. From the almost shocking modernity of the Ming Dynasty Jin Ping Mei (arguably the world's first modern novel) to the mid-1900s stories of Eileen Chang to the scandalous "untranslatable" works of contemporary author Jia Pingwa, the fiction of details decentres plot in favour of "telling details" that reveal psychological depth and society's political unconscious through a distinctively Chinese literary aesthetic that has renewed itself, very much in conversation with world literary developments, from late Imperial times to the present. This rich and unprecedented study will provoke readers and scholars to further reading and new insights for years to come."

-Jason McGrath, Professor of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, USA

"Telling Details takes a close look at the "fiction of detail" by defining an exquisitely aesthetic aspect in traditional and modern Chinese fiction. Xiao delves into how and why the novelist lingers and elaborates on sensuous and allegorical details and articulate hidden significant human experiences. With its unique perspective, this wonderful book has potential to generate much discussion on visual minutae and and fabrics in fiction and film."

- Ban Wang, William Haas Endowed Chair Professor in Chinese Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature, Standford University, USA

"In Telling Details, Jiwei Xiao boldly reads Chinese fiction from the 17^th century to the present as representative of a modern(ist) style that focuses on the representation of detail. With the critical flair of the true comparatist, she perceptively connects the Chinese novels with works from other national traditions, arguing eloquently and convincingly in support of their status as "world literature." This book has much to offer for students of fiction, regardless of their regional specialization."

-Michel Hockx, Professor of Chinese Literature, University of Notre Dame, USA

"Uniquely bridging the fields of Late Imperial and Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literary Studies, Telling Details should become required reading in graduate classes on Chinese literary modernity, and select chapters could be assigned in undergraduate classes along with selections from primary texts."

-Paola Iovene, University of Chicago, MCLC Resource Center, USA

"The book is meticulously edited and elegantly written. More broadly, it makes a timely, intriguing, and invigorating contribution to literary criticism and cultural theory in a global frame."

-Sheldon Lu, UC Davis, Rocky Mountain Review, Spring 2022, pp. 156-8

O autorze

Jiwei Xiao is Associate Professor of Modern Languages and Literatures (Chinese) at Fairfield University. She is a scholar of comparative literature and Chinese cinema. Her wide-ranging publications have appeared in New Left Review, New York Review of Books, Film Quarterly, Cineaste, MCLC, and Journal of Contemporary China. Telling Details: Chinese Fiction, World Literature is her first book.