Zhou Siming

zsm_511@126.com

FORTY years after the beginning of the reform and opening up policy in China, Shenzhen has formed diverse and harmonious cultural scenes, including literature. Its different literary styles are known as grassroots literature, immigrant literature, school literature, white-collar literature, working-class literature and young lives literature. Shenzhen writers have transformed from spontaneous to self-conscious, from individuality to plurality, from pure narration to meaning-seeking, from disordered to self-conscious and from scattering to integrated, showing great vigor and vitality. Their creative achievements deserve to be honored.

In the 1980s, works by strong Shenzhen writers first appeared on the Chinese literary scene. Liu Xihong, Qiao Xuezhu, Wang Xiaoni, Zhang Liming, Li Zhenyu, Lin Jian and Zhang Weiming’s fictions, poetries, and prose represented the city of Shenzhen’s characteristics at this stage very well. Their unique narratives — “the new characters and the new world” — are told with the background of reform and opening up in Shenzhen, and outlined the early stages of Shenzhen literature.

Liu Xihong’s “You Can’t Change Me” was the most influential novel in the special economic zone in the 1980s, and it won a national short story award. It was first published in People’s Literature magazine in 1986 and was evaluated as being “an experimental novel with novel thoughts.” “You Can’t Change Me” led a great wave and shocked China’s contemporary literary world.

At the turn of the 21st century, Shenzhen’s quiet literature circle began to stir. There appeared some writers who won national attention. Though their writing styles varied, their works were basically realistic.

Yang Liguang’s reports in the 1990s closely followed the pulse of that era. He was good at blending his own thoughts into his big urban cases narrative, thus exerting great influence. Yang’s recent novel, “Zhang Chong Six Chapters,” was a profound reflection on China’s elementary education.

Before Li Lanni published her novel “No Man in the Wilderness — the Spiritual Archive of a Depressed Man,” she had already published many novels and film scripts. In this novel, she closely depicted the spiritual world of a depressed person, which also served as a vivid reflection of the human condition during China’s contemporary modernization process.

Peng Mingyan wrote full-length novels including “Century Aristocrat” and “Yang Family Style” as well as some other reportages, prose, films and television dramas. She strove to represent the unique lives of Shenzheners and was highly commended by critics. Another writer called Nan Xiang wrote novels containing both social and ideological depth, covering different settings like universities, common folk and government institutions. Writer Cao Zhenglu published her novel “Ask the Vast” and novella “There” and has won positive responses.

Wu Jun’s novel reflects the wretched and gloomy lives of migrant workers struggling at the bottom classes of the city. With plot twists and Wu’s tactfully implicit writing skills, it brings readers into their reality. The film adaptation of her novel has also been released. Wang Shiyue and other migrant writers also recorded in literature the physical and mental struggles of blue-collars works. Their work surely expanded the coastline of the genre.

After nearly 40 years of literary trekking, Shenzhen writers have created a large number of literary works and won the attention of contemporary Chinese literary scene. According to experts, writers under the modern impetuous, turbulent and commercial context have a more conscious sense of writing choices, which adds new variety to the collections of contemporary Chinese literature. However, generally speaking, the influence of Shenzhen literature does not match the city’s image as “the pioneer of reform” and its heft of fast economic achievement.

The act of the reform and opening up in Shenzhen is revolutionary, with many thrilling characters and stories. However, there are few influential and monumental “made-in-Shenzhen” literature works. Shenzhen has unique economic, political, social, geographical and cultural resources. Although Shenzhen literature is starting to show its strength, Shenzhen has not made sufficient in-depth explorations and critical interpretations. Literature methods and ideas are still too simple, lacking change and innovations. “Made-in-Shenzhen” movies and TV dramas are short of original ideas or creativity. This does not match Shenzhen’s reputation as an innovation pioneer.

Chinese scholar Chen Yinque put forward “independent thoughts and free spirit” when he wrote an inscription for Wang Guowei in 1929. I thought some Shenzhen writers have written impactful works that stood out in the country because they have an independent thought and free spirit. On the contrary, due to the lack of such mentality, although some writers publish their works regularly, they could only provide transcripts or works refinement. Their works do not inspire or emotionally move the others. They lacked the charm of originality and cannot even touch other writers’ backs or even surpass themselves. Works that fail to go beyond life, focusing too much on the shallow interpretation of superficial cultural symbols, targeting winning awards and recognition from media and authorities and fictions based merely on indirect information are commonly seen.

Overall, Shenzhen literature works lack strong competitiveness. How can a writer in this age of consumerism retain the “independent thoughts and free spirit” without being hijacked by various seductive elements? It is worth thinking about how to get rid of “ideographic anxiety” and return to the hearts of subjects and continue in-depth inquiries into the meaning of life.

(Author Zhou Siming is the vice chairman of Shenzhen Literary Critics Association.)