Chinese Literature

[Daniel del Real]

A Lai
The most famous Tibetan writer in China today. His masterpiece,Red Poppies,is a huge famous epic novel, considered to be one of the greatest novels in China in the last 50 years. It tells the story of tribes in Tibet before 1949, kind of like Mel Gibson's film Apocalypto,but with a larger setting and a more complex story. He was also editor of Science Fiction World, in 2006, he saw a manuscript for a novel from a man who worked in a power plant, read it , and without hesitation, serialized it in the magazine, this novel is called The Three-Body Problem.

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I found a slim novel by him translated to Spanish as The Mushroom Paradise. It looks interesting. Have you read it?

 

[zhang wei]

I obviously don't know anything about reputation, but I really disliked Mo Yan. I've always put Red Sorghum in the list of the worst books I've ever read. I haven't read Gao Xingjian. Without getting into right or wrong, this just tells me that I probably have a very different taste than Chinese critics.

Here is a list of the “100 greatest Chinese novels of the 20th century”，selected by 14 Chinese critics from different Chinese speaking regions, including the mainland, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and even North America.The list is too long, I'll only list the top 20.

1.Call to Arms（Collection of novels） by Lu Xun（1923）
2.Border Town by Shen Congwen（1934）
3.Rickshaw Boy by Lao She（1936）
4.Legend（Collection of novels） by Eileen Chang（1944）
5.Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu（1947）
6.Midnight by Mao Dun（1933）
7.Taipei People（Collection of novels） by Pai Hsien-yung（1971）
8.The Family by Ba Jin（1933）
9.Tales of Hulan River by Xiao Hong（1940）
10.The Travels of Lao Ts'an by Liu E（1903）
11.Cold Nights by Ba Jin（1947）
12.Wandering（Collection of novels） by Lu Xun（1926）
13.Officialdom Unmasked by Li Boyuan（1903-1905）
14.The sons and daughters of the rich man by Lu Ling（1945-1948）
15.The Generals by Ch'en Ying-chen（1964）
16.Sinking by Yu Dafu（1921）
17.Ripple on Stagnant Water by Li Jieren（1935）
18.Red Sorghum by Mo Yan（1986）
19.Little Erhei's Marriage by Zhao Shuli（1943）
20.The King of Chess by Ah Cheng（1984）

 

[zhang wei]

I obviously don't know anything about reputation, but I really disliked Mo Yan. I've always put Red Sorghum in the list of the worst books I've ever read. I haven't read Gao Xingjian. Without getting into right or wrong, this just tells me that I probably have a very different taste than Chinese critics.

Here's another list called "The 60 Greatest Chinese Writers of the Century"，selected by 25 Chinese critics and 40,000 readers in 2005，I'll only list the top 20 too.

1.Lu Xun（1881-1936）
2.Eileen Chang（1920-1995）
3.Shen Congwen（1902-1988）
4.Lao She（1899-1966）
5.Mao Dun（1896-1981）
6.Jia Pingwa（1952—）
7.Ba Jin（1904-2005）
8.Cao Yu（1910-1996）
9.Qian Zhongshu（1910-1998）
10.Yu Hua（1960—）
11.Wang Zengqi（1920-1997）
12.Mo Yan（1955—）
13.Xu Zhimo（1897-1931）
14.Wang Anyi（1954—）
15.Zhou Zuoren（1885-1967）
16.Jin Yong（1924-2018）
17.Zhu Ziqing（1898-1948）
18.Yu Dafu（1896-1945）
19.Dai Wangshu（1905-1950）
20.Bei Dao（1949—）