Can Xue

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In this Chinese name, the family name is Deng.

Deng Xiaohua (Chinese: 邓小华; pinyin: Dèng Xiǎohuá; born May 30, 1953), better known by her pen name Can Xue (Chinese: 残雪; pinyin: Cán Xuě; lit: lingering snow), is a Chinese avant-garde fiction writer and literary critic. Her family was severely persecuted following her father being labeled a rightist in the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957.[1] Her writing, which consists mostly of short fiction, breaks with the realism of earlier modern Chinese writers. She has also written novels, novellas, and literary criticism of Dante, Jorge Luis Borges, and Franz Kafka. Can Xue has been described as "China’s most prominent author of experimental fiction,"[2] and most of her fiction has been translated and published in English.

Life[edit]

Deng Xiaohua was born in 1953, in Changsha, Hunan, China. Her early life was marked by a series of tragic hardships which influenced the direction of her work. She was one of six children born to a man who was once the editor-in-chief of the New Hunan Daily (Chinese: 新湖南日报; pinyin: Xīn Húnán Rìbào). Her parents, like many intellectuals at the time, were denounced as rightists in the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957, despite being Communist Party members themselves. Her father was sent to the countryside for two years in retribution for allegedly leading an anti-Communist Party group at the paper. Two years later, the entire family was evicted from the company housing at the newspaper and moved to a tiny hut below the Yuelu Mountain, on the rural outskirts of Changsha. In the years that followed, the family suffered greatly under further persecution. Her father was jailed, and her mother was sent along with her two brothers to the countryside for re-education through labor. Deng was allowed to remain in the city because of her poor health. After being forced to leave the small hut, she lived alone in a small, dark room under a staircase. By the time of the Cultural Revolution, Deng was thirteen years old. Her formal education was permanently disrupted after completing primary school.[1][3]

Can Xue describes the horrors of her youth in detail in her memoirs titled "A Summer Day in the Beautiful South" which is included as the foreword to her short story collection Dialogues in Paradise. Throughout this period, her entire family "struggled along on the verge of death". Her grandmother, who raised her while her parents were gone, soon succumbed to hunger and fatigue, dying with severe edema, a grotesque swelling condition. While the family was forced to scavenge food, eventually eating all of the wool clothes in the house, Can Xue contracted a severe case of tuberculosis.[4] Later, she was able to find work as a metalworker. Ten years later, in 1980, after giving birth to her first son, she quit work at the factory. She and her husband then started a small tailoring business at home after teaching themselves to sew.

She began writing in 1983, and published her first short story "Soap Bubbles in Dirty Water" (污水上的肥皂泡) in January 1985. Two other short stories followed that year, "The Bull" (公牛) and "The Hut on the Hill",[1][5] at which point she chose the pen name Can Xue. This name can be interpreted either as the stubborn, dirty snow left at the end of winter or the remaining snow at the peak of a mountain after the rest has melted. Publishing under a pen name allowed Can Xue to write without revealing her gender. According to Tonglin Lu, a professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Montreal, once critics found out she was a woman, her "subversive voice within the supposedly subversive order [of avant-garde fiction]"[6] made them uncomfortable. Tonglin Lu called this "double subversion".[6]) Not only was she writing avant-garde fiction, but she was also a woman; male writers and critics attempted to analyze her works by psychoanalysis of the author, and some even suggested she was certifiably insane.[6] In 2002, she said, "Lots of [the critics] hate me, or at least they just keep silent, hoping I'll disappear. No one discusses my works, either because they disagree or don't understand.”[7]

More recently, however, many critics have paid tribute to her work,[6] drawn to the careful precision she uses to create such a strange, unsettling effect on the reader.

Work[edit]

Can Xue's abstract style and unconventional narrative form attracted a lot of attention from critics in the 1990s. A variety of interpretations of her work have been published, but political allegory has been the most popular way of understanding her early short stories. Many of the images in her stories have been linked to the Cultural Revolution, the Anti-Rightist Movement and other turbulent political movements of the early People's Republic of China. However, direct references to these events are uncommon.[8] The author herself explicitly denies most forms of political commentary others claim to have found in her work, stating once in an interview, "There is no political cause in my work."[9]

On the contrary, Can Xue says she treats each story as a kind of life experiment in which she is the subject.[10] “In very deep layers,” she says, “all of my works are autobiographical.”[7] As for those who struggle to find meaning in her stories, Can Xue says, "If a reader feels that this book is unreadable, then it's quite clear that he's not one of my readers."[11]

Can Xue has also written part of the libretto for at least one opera. In 2010, Can Xue and Lin Wang (web) co-wrote the libretto for a contemporary chamber opera Die Quelle (The Source) commissioned to Lin Wang by Münchener Biennale. The opera is based on Can Xue's published short story "The Double Life". In this opera, a young artist named Jian Yi is deconstructed into different aspects played by different roles. They crosstalk to each other on stage; drying and bubbling-up of the spring symbolize loss and regain of one's own identity. Lin Wang composed the music for Die Quelle (85 minutes in length). Chinese instruments such as the sheng, guzheng and sanxian were used. An unusual feature of the opera is its combination of English pronunciation and Chinese intonation. Die Quelle was premiered on May 9, 2010, in Munich Biennale and broadcast live.[12]

Reception[edit]

Amanda DeMarco stated that the extent to which Can Xue's work is radical is overstated. DeMarco also claims the animals in her novel Frontier "appear in such wild profusion that it would be impossible to assign them a symbology. Can Xue’s writing is not metaphorical in this sense. There is no organized system of correspondence or meaning within it that would allow individual elements to be explained back into the realm of the logical. Often her works are compared to performances, to dance, or to visual art." However, the reviewer still described the experience of reading the author's books as rewarding, explaining that the tools of literature used in experimental writing to chart the human being extend beyond the capacities of language as logic. DeMarco said that at "the sentence level, [Frontier] is a wonderful, carefully hewn thing, lucid and pure".[2]

American novelist and editor Bradford Morrow has described her as one of the most "innovative and important" authors in contemporary world literature.[13]

Can Xue won the 2015 Best Translated Book Award for her novel The Last Lover.[14]

Selected bibliography[edit]

Can Xue has published a large number of novels, novellas, short stories, and book-length commentaries, many of which have been translated into English.[15]

Novels[edit]

Year Original title English title Publisher
1990 突围表演 Breakout Performance Hong Kong Youth Library
2002 五香街 Five Spice Street Straits Literature and Art Publishing House
2004 单身女人琐事记实 Trivial Records of Single Women Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House
2005 最后的情人 The Last Lover Huacheng Publishing House
2008 邊疆 Borderland Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House
2011 呂芳詩小姐 Miss Lu Fangshi Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House
2013 新世紀愛情故事 New Century Love Story Writers Publishing House
2015 黑暗地母的礼物（上） The Gift of the Dark Earth Mother (Part 1) Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House
2017 黑暗地母的礼物（下） The Gift of the Dark Earth Mother (Part 2) Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House
2019 赤腳醫生 Barefoot Doctor Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House
2021 水乡 Water Village Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House
2022 激情世界 Passionate World People's Literature Publishing House

Novellas[edit]

Year Original title English title Publisher
1987 黄泥街 Huangni Street Taiwan Yuanshen Publishing House
1988 天堂里的对话 Conversations in Heaven/Dialogues in Paradise Writers Publishing House
1990 种在走廊上的苹果树 Apple Tree Planted on the Corridor Taiwan Vision Publishing House
1994 思想汇报 Ideological Report Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House
1995 辉煌的日子 Glory Days Hebei Education Press
2000 奇异的木板房 Strange Wooden Board House Yunnan People's Publishing House
美丽南方之夏日 Summer in the Beautiful South Yunnan People's Publishing House
2001 蚊子与山歌 Mosquitoes and Folk Songs China Literary and Art Circles Publishing Company
长发的遭遇 The Encounter of Long Hair Chinese Publishing House
2002 松明老师 Teacher Songming Straits Literature and Art Publishing House
2004 爱情魔方 Love Cube Ethnic Publishing House
从未描述过的梦境 Dreams Never Described Writers Press
2005 双重的生活 Double Life Taiwan Trojan Culture
2006 传说中的宝藏 The Legendary Treasure Chunfeng Literature and Art Publishing House
暗夜 Dark Night Chinese Publishing House
末世爱情 Love in the End of the World Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House
2021 少年鼓手 Young Drummer People's Literature Publishing House
2022 西双版纳的女神 The Goddess of Xishuangbanna People's Literature Publishing House

Essays and Non-fiction[edit]

Year Original title English title Publisher
1999 灵魂的城堡：理解卡夫卡 The Castle of the Soul: Understanding Kafka Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House
2000 解读博尔赫斯 Interpreting Borges People's Literature Publishing House
残雪散文 Can Xue's Prose Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House
2003 地狱的独行者 The Lonely Walker in Hell Beijing Sanlian Bookstore
艺术复仇 Art Revenge Guangxi Normal University Press
残雪访谈录 Interviews with Can Xue Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House
2004 置身绝境的操练 Exercise in Desperate Situations October Literature and Art Publishing House
2005 温柔的编织工：残雪读卡尔维诺与波赫士 The Gentle Weaver: Can Xue's Reading of Calvino and Borges Taiwan Border Town Press
2007 残雪文学观 Can Xue's Literary Views Guangxi Normal University Press
2008 趋光运动：回溯童年的精神图景 Phototaxis Movement: Looking Back at the Spiritual Picture of Childhood Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House
2009 黑暗灵魂的舞蹈：残雪美文自选集 Dance of Dark Souls: A Selected Collection of Beautiful Essays by Can Xue Wenhui Publishing House
2017 残雪文学回忆录 Can Xue's Literary Memoirs Guangdong People's Publishing House
2023 新叶 New Leaves Hunan Children's Publishing House

Compilations in English

  • Old Floating Cloud: Two Novellas, trans. Ronald R. Janssen and Jian Zhang (Northwestern, 1991). Compiles Yellow Mud Street and Old Floating Cloud.
  • The Embroidered Shoes, trans. Ronald R. Janssen and Jian Zhang (Henry Holt, 1997).
  • Blue Light in the Sky and Other Stories, trans. Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (New Directions, 2006).
  • Vertical Motion, trans. Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (Open Letter, 2011).
  • I Live in the Slums, trans. Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (Yale, 2020).
  • Purple Perilla, trans. Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping (ISOLARII, 2021).

Awards and honors[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Lilly Xiao Hong Lee & Clara Wing-chung Ho (2003). Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Women, Volume 2. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 26–28. ISBN 9780765607980.
  2. ^ a b DeMarco, Amanda (2017-05-03). "Xue Generis: Can Xue and the Dangers of Literary Exceptionalism". BLARB. Archived from the original on 2017-06-02. Retrieved 2021-01-09. "Critics focusing on Can Xue are often scholars or translators of Chinese literature; they assure us that she is "peerless" as a writer of experimental literature in China"
  3. ^ Rong, Cai (2004). The Subject in Crisis in Contemporary Chinese Literature. University of Hawaii Press. p. 98.
  4. ^ Can Xue (1989). "A Summer Day in the Beautiful South". Dialogues in Paradise. Northwestern University Press.
  5. ^ 宋如珊 (2006-10-01). 從傷痕文學到尋根文學: 文革後十年的大陸文學流派 (in Chinese (Taiwan)). 秀威出版. p. 246. ISBN 978-957-30429-3-8.
  6. ^ a b c d Lu, Tonglin (1993). Gender and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Chinese Literature and Society. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. p. 176. ISBN 978-0791413722.
  7. ^ a b McCandlish, Laura. "Stubbornly Illuminating 'the Dirty Snow that Refuses to Melt': A Conversation with Can Xue". Retrieved January 17, 2014.
  8. ^ Tian Ming Li (1994). "A Tormented Soul in a Locked Hut: Can Xue's Short Stories" (Adobe Portable Document Format). University of British Columbia.[permanent dead link]
  9. ^ McCandlish, Laura (2002). "Stubbornly Illuminating "the Dirty Snow that Refuses to Melt": A Conversation with Can Xue". MCLC Resource Center.
  10. ^ "Contemporary Chinese Writers: Can Xue". MIT. Retrieved January 17, 2014.
  11. ^ "Modernist Mystery Street". PRI’S The World. Archived from the original on 2010-02-27.
  12. ^ "Die Quelle – Münchener Biennale". Archived from the original on 2015-02-15. Retrieved 2015-01-31.
  13. ^ James, Evan (2017-06-08). "The Mysterious Frontiers of Can Xue". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2021-01-09.
  14. ^ "Can Xue". Words Without Borders. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
  15. ^ "Can Xue Chronology". Contemporary Chinese Writers. MIT Foreign Languages and Literatures Section. Retrieved 26 December 2012.
  16. ^ Chad Post (May 27, 2015). "BTBA 2015 Winners: Can Xue and Rocío Cerón!". Three Percent. Retrieved May 28, 2015.
  17. ^ "Can Xue | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  18. ^ "Can Xue | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com. Retrieved 2022-06-16.
  19. ^ America Awards, Green Integer, retrieved 2 May 2024

External links[edit]

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