Ying Xiong - Böcker

This book examines how Chinese thinkers and writers drew on foreign literature between 1918 and 1958 in order to construct China's independent cultural identity. By covering work by authors such as Lu Xun, Yuan Shu, Zhou Libo, Bing Xin, Ding Lin, Guo Xiaochuan, Ye Junjian, and others, this book shows how twentieth-century Chinese literature was shaped by transnational intellectual forces and movements such as imperialism, Asian regionalism, internationalism, and cosmopolitanism. While many studies on modern Chinese literature have remained within the confines of national history, this study analyses key literary writings and translations carried out by modern Chinese writers to demonstrate that the process of establishing China's nation-state is also the process of establishing China's interconnection to the world. This book also aims to show how foreign literary resources were borrowed, translated, mediated, and transformed in China in the period.

In Representing Empire Ying Xiong examines Japanese-language colonial literature written by Japanese expatriate writers in Taiwan and Manchuria. Drawing on a wide range of Japanese and Chinese sources, Representing Empire reveals not only a nuanced picture of Japanese literary terrain but also the interplay between imperialism, nationalism, and Pan-Asianism in the colonies. While the existing literature on Japanese nationalism has largely remained within the confines of national history, by using colonial literature as an example, Ying Xiong demonstrates that transnational forces shaped Japanese nationalism in the twentieth century.With its multidisciplinary and comparative approach, Representing Empire adds to a growing body of literature that challenges traditional interpretations of Japanese nationalism and national literary canon. “Representing Empire is an outstanding accomplishment, at once making clearer and complicating our understandings of the literary worlds of Manchuria and Taiwan, and the greater imperial empire within which all were transformed. … add[s] substantially to the ways in which Japan’s empire and twentieth century East Asian history more generally might be interpreted.” Norman Smith, University of Guelph, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture Resource Center Publication (February, 2015)