CHINESE writer Chen Zhongshi died of cancer Friday in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province. He was 73 and his masterpieces included “White Deer Plain,” which won him China’s top literature prize.

    Chen was born in August 1942 in Xi’an. He started writing prose in 1965 and completed “White Deer Plain” in 1992, for which he won the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 1997, one of the most prestigious literature prizes in China.

    With the novel’s publication in 1993, Chen shot to fame almost overnight. Critics described his works as a “realistic reflection of Chinese contemporary history.”

    The novel, based on the county annals of Chen’s hometown White Deer Plain in Shaanxi, tells of historical changes to the land over 50 years from the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). It is a mix of realism, magic realism and many other avant-garde writing techniques.

    Since it was first published, it has set a record as a contemporary literary work, with about 2 million copies sold in China, according to People’s Literature Publishing House.

    It has been translated into French, Japanese, Korean, Mongolian and Vietnamese.

    “If this novel can arouse the interest of readers and help them to gain a real sense of the history it relates and of the background against which contemporary China walks, I will feel totally satisfied,” Chen once said.

    (China Daily)