The contradictions of exile : escape, testimony, and ethics in Gao Xingjian’s One man’s Bible

The present essay proposes to focus more closely on One Man’s Bible as encapsulating some of the tensions and contradictions of exile as a theme in Gao’s work and worldview

Gao Xingjian, Wolfgang Kubin, and the Nobel Prize Debate Ten Years On

Chinese literature and its significance or insignificance is a continued subject of heated debate in China. From May Fourth, when anti-traditionalist thinkers called on literature to assume a pioneering role in transforming subjects into citizens, to its use as propaganda during World War Two and on both sides of the Strait after 1949, it was seen as a crucial vector of political ideas. During the “Enlightenment” of the 1980s, literature was again called upon to play a central – though politically very different – role in helping society come to terms with the officially still taboo traumas of the Cultural Revolution. However, “Enlightenment” this time was not only synonymous with anti-traditionalism: critical reflection on the iconoclasm of the Cultural Revolution, emphasizing literature’s role as a moral conscience, also led to an enthusiastic rediscovery of cultural tradition, often against May Fourth ideals, among the writers of the “roots” (xungen) movement. It was only in the aftermath of the failed Tiananmen protests of 1989 that younger writers began to substantially question the need for literature to play a central role in society and in intellectual debate

Building a Public Consciousness

This text is transcribed from the recording of a panel discussion organised on 13 April 2009 by the Hong Kong International Film Festival and the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China, as part of the symposium “Between public and private : A space for independent Chinese cinema.” Jia Zhangke’s answers to two additional audience questions have been inserted into the discussion where they seemed most relevant

Propaganda and Pastiche

The two Mao films of 2009 and 2011 set a new standard in the confluence of commercial and propaganda productions in terms of sheer scale. While they are not fundamentally new in repackaging propaganda as entertainment, or even in co-opting parodic elements within official discourse, this essay argues that, viewed against the background of recent policy speeches, they contribute to defining the new “mainstream socialist culture” set out as a cultural policy goal by Hu Jintao. By the same thrust, they redefine the figure of Mao and the role of the CCP in an attempt to stake out a popular consensus on the contemporary Chinese polity

Le subversif « plaisir de penser »

Wang Xiaobo, Wang in Love and Bondage. Traduit du chinois et préfacé par Hongling Zhang et Jason Sommer, Albany, SUNY Press, 2007, 155 pp

Zhang Yinde, Le Monde romanesque chinois au xxe siècle. Modernités et identités

L’ouvrage de Zhang Yinde, fruit d’un travail de longue haleine, est la première somme en langue française consacrée à la littérature chinoise du xxe siècle à la fois dans sa diversité (République populaire, Taiwan, Hong Kong, époque du 4 mai 1919, réalisme socialiste, renouveau de l’après-1979, littérature de genre), et avec un souci de réflexion théorique et historique. Les 24 chapitres qui le composent, regroupés en trois parties, sont une mine d’informations, accompagnés d’un glossaire de ..

Eliminating Disharmony: Recent Examples of Censorship in Chinese Writing and Cinema

This article examines contradictory recent trends in the Chinese censorship system regarding literature and cinema. While measures targeting the publishers of “eight banned books” in January 2007 demonstrated a preoccupation with the representation of history, fiction writing with political implications (Yan Lianke, Tsering Woeser) also remains sensitive. Independent cinema has recently been attempting to enter the official circuit, prompting the Film Bureau to accept a form of dialogue and negotiation with film directors. Nonetheless, the Bureau’s continued preoccupation with a non-conflictual representation of society betrays the government’s persisting tendency to assess films in terms of their political effects

La création d’un espace littéraire pour débattre de l’ère maoïste

Depuis la littérature des cicatrices du début des années 1980, la fiction et l’autobiographie fictionnalisée ont largement contribué à mettre en lumière la violence de masse de la Révolution culturelle. Cependant, ces textes se sont cantonnés à un cadre bien défini, à l’intérieur duquel le système politique n’était pas remis en question en tant que tel. Ces dix dernières années, le champ littéraire chinois s’est en revanche penché plus spécifiquement sur les années 1950, avec des oeuvres telles que Chroniques de Jiabiangou de Yang Xianhui (Tianjin, 2002) et Stèles de Yang Jisheng (Hong Kong, 2008). Cet article s’intéresse aux Quatre Livres de Yan Lianke (Hong Kong, 2010), une fictionnalisation complète sur le mode fantastique de la famine du Grand Bond en avant dans un village situé sur les rives du fleuve Jaune. Si l’on considère la littérature dans le contexte des théories de l’espace public, on peut penser que le livre de Yan vise à élargir de manière décisive le débat sur certains aspects auparavant tabous de l’ère maoïste, objectif qui n’a été que partiellement contrecarré par l’échec de sa publication en Chine continentale. Les Quatre Livres, comme les oeuvres de Yang Jisheng et de Yang Xianhui, représente une tentative visant à remettre en question la légitimité originelle du système politique de la République populaire de Chine et à créer un débat au sein de l’espace public sinophone sur les fondations du régime actuel