A01=Perry Link
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Author_Perry Link
Ba Jin
Bei Dao
Beijing
Bureaucrat
Calligraphy
Cao Yu
Category=DSA
Category=DSBH
Category=JPFF
China
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Chinese culture
Chinese literature
Comrade
Confucianism
Creative writing
Criticism
Cultural Revolution
Deng Xiaoping
Dream of the Red Chamber
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Fudan University
Guan Yu
Guangdong
Guangzhou
Hu Yaobang
Ibid (short story)
Ideology
Irony
Jiang Qing
Kang Sheng
Li Zhisui
Lin Biao
Literature
Liu Binyan
Liu Xinwu
Livelihood
Lu Xun
Mao Zedong
Maoism
May Fourth Movement
Merle Goldman
Modem
Newspaper
Novelist
Patriotism
People or Monsters
Poetry
Politics
Publication
Red Guards (China)
Resentment
Ruling class
Salary
Satire
Scar literature
Sha Yexin
Short story
Socialist realism
Struggle (TV series)
The Other Hand
Two Kinds
University of California Press
Utopia
Wang Ruowang
Work unit
Writer
Writing
Xinhua Bookstore
Yan'an
Year
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Zhou Enlai
Product details
- ISBN 9780691001982
- Weight: 549g
- Dimensions: 197 x 254mm
- Publication Date: 05 Mar 2000
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Why do people in socialist China read and write literary works? Earlier studies in Western Sinology have approached Chinese texts from the socialist era as portraits of society, as keys to the tug-of-war of dissent, or, more recently, as pursuit of "pure art." The Uses of Literature looks broadly and empirically at these and many other "uses" of literature from the points of view of authors, editors, political authorities, and several kinds of readers. Perry Link, author of Evening Chats in Beijing, considers texts ranging from elite "misty" poetry to underground hand-copied volumes (shouchauben) and shows in concrete detail how people who were involved with literature sought to teach, learn, enjoy, explore, debate, lead, control, and resist. Using the late 1970s and early 1980s as an entree to the workings of China's "socialist literary system," the author shows how that system held sway from 1950 until around 1990, when an encroaching market economy gradually but fundamentally changed it. In addition to providing a definitive overview of how the socialist Chinese literary system worked, Link offers comparisons to the similar system in the Soviet Union.
In the final chapter, the book seeks to explain how the word "good" was used and understood when applied to literary works in such systems. Combining aspects of cultural and literary studies, The Uses of Literature will reward anyone interested in the literature of modern China or how creativity is affected by a "socialist literary system."
Perry Link is Professor of East Asian Studies at Princeton University, where he teaches modern Chinese language, literature, and cultural history. His books include Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies and Evening Chats in Beijing.
