The "70-hou" defend themselves by maintaining that it's not what you write, but how you write, that determines the value of a literary work. Case in point: Shen Congwen, one of the best novelists of the 20th century, a Phoenix native, never dwelled on the so-called big events. He dealt exquisitely with the lives of ordinary people, especially his hometown folk in the mountains between Hunan and Guizhou. Many of the widely acclaimed works of his time ebbed away, but Shen's fiction not only has survived the test of time, but shines brighter than ever.
Several young scribes see breakthroughs in writing techniques as their top priority. Only Zhe Gui says he wants to grapple with the "serious social ills" because "as a writer we have social responsibilities and we have to raise questions."
They seem to agree that the pendulum has stopped swinging between either content-centric or technique-centric and has reached equilibrium right now.
"I don't intend to reform the world. I'm aware of the futility of such efforts. I want to keep a certain distance with the outside world," says Xie Zongyu, the cop-author, whose day job forces him to stand face-to-face with the stark reality, especially the ugly things, of our era.
None of the authors who kept my company till the wee hours and answered my questions find it difficult getting published. It's the thunderous cheers that would make them household names that seem to be stubbornly elusive. Maybe it'll take some time for their work to sink in with the general public.
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