Abstract Book of the 8th International Conference on Advanced Research in Social Sciences Studies
Year: 2025
DOI:
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Rethinking History: Cultural Reflection in Contemporary Chinese Literature
Wenli Xu
ABSTRACT:
This paper takes Ah Cheng’s short story The King of Chess as its primary case study, alongside works by other contemporary writers, to examine his literary practice in the context of relevant political movements, socio-economic conditions, and his personal life experiences. As a writer of the “educated youth” generation who lived through the Cultural Revolution, Ah Cheng did not, like many of his contemporaries, engage in direct or indirect condemnation of the era. Instead, he reflected on reality through the lens of traditional Chinese culture, reconfiguring the historical narrative of the Cultural Revolution while simultaneously contemplating his own identity. This paper argues that Ah Cheng, writing from the perspective of an “observer,” developed a distinctive literary discourse within the “educated youth” writer group, while also exposing the tensions between official and grassroots interpretations of the Cultural Revolution. These tensions, in turn, stem from his personal experiences, educated youth background, and the political and economic circumstances of the time. By analyzing Ah Cheng’s work, this paper further explores the dialectical relationship between official political discourse and grassroots literary creation, highlighting the diversity and fluidity within grassroots literature.
Keywords: Ah Cheng, The King of Chess, Cultural Revolution, literary discourse, narrative plurality