Description
Book SynopsisXie analyzes three novels by the international award-winning Chinese writer Yan Lianke and investigates how his signature âœmythorealistâ form produces textual meanings that subvert the totalizing reality prescribed by literary realism.
The term mythorealism, which Yan coined to describe his own writing style, refers to a set of literary devices that incorporate both Chinese and Western literary elements while remaining primarily grounded in Chinese folk culture and literary tradition. In his use of mythorealism, carrying a burden of social critique that cannot allow itself to become âœpolitical,â Yan transcends the temporality and provinciality of immediate social events and transforms his potential socio-political commentaries into more diversified concerns for humanity, existential issues, and spiritual crisis. Xie identifies three modes of mythorealist narrative exemplified in Yanâs three novels: the minjian (folk) mode in Dream of Ding Village, the allusive
