Tales of Futures Past : Anticipation and the Ends of Literature in Contemporary China

Most studies of Chinese literature conflate the category of the future with notions of progress and nation building, and with the utopian visions broadcast by the Maoist and post-Mao developmental state. The future is thus understood as a preconceived endpoint that is propagated, at times even imposed, by a center of power. By contrast, __Tales of Futures Past__ introduces "anticipation"—the expectations that permeate life as it unfolds—as a lens through which to reexamine the textual, institutional, and experiential aspects of Chinese literary culture from the 1950s to 2011. In doing so, Paola Iovene connects the emergence of new literary genres with changing visions of the future in contemporary China.This book provides a nuanced and dynamic account of the relationship between state discourses, market pressures, and individual writers and texts. It stresses authors' and editors' efforts to redefine what constitutes literature under changing political and economic circumstances. Engaging with questions of translation, temporality, formation of genres, and stylistic change, Iovene mines Chinese science fiction and popular science, puts forward a new interpretation of familiar Chinese avant-garde fiction, and offers close readings of texts that have not yet received any attention in English-language scholarship. Far-ranging in its chronological scope and impressive in its interdisciplinary approach, this book rethinks the legacies of socialism in postsocialist Chinese literary modernity. Most studies of Chinese literature conflate the category of the future with notions of progress and nation building, and with the utopian visions broadcast by the Maoist and post-Mao developmental state. The future is thus understood as a preconceived endpoint that is propagated, at times even imposed, by a center of power. By contrast, Tales of Futures Past introduces "anticipation"--The expectations that permeate life as it unfolds--as a lens through which to reexamine the textual, institutional, and experiential aspects of Chinese literary culture from the 1950s to 2011. In doing so, Paola Iovene connects the emergence of new literary genres with changing visions of the future in contemporary China. This book provides a nuanced and dynamic account of the relationship between state discourses, market pressures, and individual writers and texts. It stresses authors' and editors' efforts to redefine what constitutes literature under changing political and economic circumstances. Engaging with questions of translation, temporality, formation of genres, and stylistic change, Iovene mines Chinese science fiction and popular science, puts forward a new interpretation of familiar Chinese avant-garde fiction, and offers close readings of texts that have not yet received any attention in English-language scholarship. Far-ranging in its chronological scope and impressive in its interdisciplinary approach, this book rethinks the legacies of socialism in postsocialist Chinese literary modernity This Study Introduces The Concept Of 'anticipation' As A Lens Through Which To Re-examine The Textual, Institutional, And Experiential Aspects Of Chinese Literary Culture From The 1950s To The First Decade Of The 21st Century. Each Of The Book's Five Chapters Details How Different Modes Of Anticipation Find Expression In Contemporary Chinese Literature, With A Focus On Fictional Genres. How I Divorced My Robot Wife : Visionary Futures Between Science And Literature -- Translation Zones : Anticipating World Literature In Socialist China -- Accelerating Literary Time : Metropolitan Editors At Work -- Futures En Abyme : Poetry In Strange Loops -- A Clean Place To Die : Fog, Toxicity, And Shame In End Of Spring In Jiangnan -- Appendix 1 : Literary Periodicals For Internal Distribution In The 1950s-1960s -- Appendix 2 : Poems By Li Shangyin. Paola Iovene. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Iovene reexamines the textual, institutional, and experiential aspects of Chinese literary culture during the Maoist and post-Mao era, from the 1950s to 2011. She mines a wide range of Chinese literary works, encompassing avantgarde and science fiction, popular science magazines, children's books, journals, and film scripts, offering close readings of texts that have not yet received any attention in English-language scholarship. In doing so, Tales of Futures Past connects the emergence of new literary genres with changing visions of the future in contemporary China This book investigates how emotions and ideas about the future have shaped diverse genres, texts, and editorial practices of Chinese literature from the mid-twentieth century to 2011, introducing the concept of "anticipation" as a lens to reconsider the interdependence of aesthetics and politics in Chinese socialist and postsocialist literary modernity.