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Friday, March 27, 2020

Chinese Christian fiction

From a 2004 article. It would be interested to see an up-to-date list:

Among writers in China, whose Marxist grand narrative has also stuttered to a stop, many contemporary novelists have identified openly with religious story, now not only Confucian or Buddhist but also the Christian grand narrative. (Among the prominent Christian novelists are Lao She, Xu Dishan, Bing Xing, and Mu Dan.) There is even a new literary style called sheng jing ti ("biblical"), whose characteristics are described as "objective, truthful, terse" (Aikman 254).
https://www.christianityandliterature.com/David-Jeffrey

3 comments:

  1. Have you ever read any Soviet sci-fi or seen any films? I'm thinking of Tarkovsky's Solaris (and the 2002 Clooney version) (based on Lem's Polish book of the same name) as well as Tarkovsky's Stalker (based on the story Roadside Picnic by the Strugatsky brothers IIRC). These films proceed at a glacial pace by modern standards but I loved them. They had depth, although some people might say they had a little bit of that pretentious arthouse streak to them. I always wonder how Solaris made it past the Soviet censors given the Bach theme that pervades the work and clear implication that there was something meaningful beyond the State.

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    1. I saw the Clooney version of Solaris

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    2. Never saw the movie Solaris, but the book is fantastic. Been too long since I read it to recall the details and how it might fit within any particular worldview.

      Recently I've been going through the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy by Cixin Liu. As best I can tell, with my limited knowledge both of the overall trilogy (only about 1/3rd through 2nd book) and the culture, I think it has a viewpoint sympathetic with China's current regime (or at least the communal over individualist and capitalist mindset) while seeing the cultural revolution as having unhelpful extremes.

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