Tiananmen Fictions Outside the Square

Belinda Kong is Assistant Professor of Asian Studies and English at Bowdoin College.

"This penetrating, well-theorized, lucid book is the first to ponder the global literary impact of 'Tiananmen,' now the generally accepted shorthand term for the 1989 Beijing democracy movement and the army massacre that ended it. Kong provides close readings of four Tiananmen-related works... Recommended."Choice, November 2012 "Tiananmen Fictions Outside the Square examines from the perspective of diaspora theory works of Sinophone literature that relate directly or indirectly to the Tiananmen crackdown of 4 June 1989. The framework is intriguing, and takes to a higher level the theoretical conceptions of amnesia and memory and the complex relations of emigre writers to the Chinese homeland. The layered writing draws together various strands of diaspora theory and imparts new meanings to the construction of 'Chineseness'."--The China Journal "[E]xcellent... Kong's aim is to provide a solid introduction to a 'distinctly politicized Chinese literary diaspora' brought into being by Tiananmen... Kong illuminates the conflicting features of the literary diaspora that Tiananmen gave rise to: self-exoticization and melancholic repetition-compulsion on one side and a simultaneous critique of Chinese authoritarianism and global neoliberal capitalism on the other."--World Literature Today, November 2013

• Introduction Tiananmen in Diaspora and in Fiction; The Existentialist Square: Gao Xingjian's Taowang; Part 1 The Prize and the Polis; Part 2 Fleeing Tiananmen; II The Aporetic Square: Ha Jin's The Crazed; Part 1 The Scholar and the Student; Part 2 The Lost Square; III The Globalized Square: Annie Wang's Lili; Part 1 Female Hooligans and Global Capital; Part 2 Equivocal Transnationalism; IV The Biopolitical Square: Ma Jian's Beijing Coma; Part 1 Tiananmen Cannibals and Biopower; Part 2 Reclaiming Student Life and After; Conclusion The Square Comes Full Circle; Bibliography.