Vistopia
Cover of Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction
Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction
Read a century of modern China through its novels
Completed · 128 episodes
Buy for ¥198.00
Audio in Chinese
Chen Danqing: He Keeps a Ledger of a Century’s Literature in His Mind Chen Pingyuan: Reading a Hundred Years of Fiction with Xu Zidong Is Both Enlightening and Enjoyable Liang Wendao: Observe China’s Hundred-Year Journey Through Fiction Xu Zidong: Let These One Hundred Novels Accompany You Through the Coming Year 1. Modern Chinese Fiction Begins with a Political Fantasy | Liang Qichao’s The Future of New China 1 2. A Prophecy of Twentieth-Century China | The Future of New China 2 3. The Inner Spiritual Conflicts of Chinese Intellectuals Across a Century | Late-Qing Fiction 4. Is Corruption a “Basic Need” of Officialdom? | Li Boyuan’s Officialdom Unmasked 1 5. After Empress Dowager Cixi Read Officialdom Unmasked… | Part 2 6. Upright Officials and Courtesans: Women as Officialdom’s “Currency” | Officialdom Unmasked 3 7. Why Are We Deceived Even When We Know It Is False? | Wu Jianren’s Bizarre Happenings Eyewitnessed over Two Decades 8. An Alternative Tale of Officialdom That Unlocks Eileen Chang’s Identity | Zeng Pu’s A Flower in a Sinful Sea 1 9. Officialdom and Romance: The Legend of Courtesan Sai Jinhua | A Flower in a Sinful Sea 2 10. Are Honest Officials More Frightening Than Corrupt Ones? | Liu E’s The Travels of Lao Can 1 11. A Judge Bao Who Doesn’t Want to Be Sherlock Holmes Is No Hero | The Travels of Lao Can 2 12. Are Three Virtues Required for Love? | Mandarin Ducks and Butterflies School 13. Love Is an Illness—the Deeper the Love, the Worse the Disease | Xu Zhenya’s The Soul of the Jade Pear 14. Those Afraid of Being “Eaten” Also Take Part in Eating Others | Lu Xun’s “Diary of a Madman” 15. The Master Title of Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction | Lu Xun’s “Medicine” 16. The Ah Q Spirit: From Beginner to Advanced in “Spiritual Victory” | The True Story of Ah Q 1 17. In Lu Xun, Slavery Is an Ecology and Servility a State of Mind | The True Story of Ah Q 2 18. Must a Woman Betrayed by Her Husband Live Only in Misery? | Xu Dishan’s “The Merchant’s Wife” 19. The World Is Always Beautiful Through Her Eyes | Bing Xin’s “Superman” and Xu Dishan’s “The Web-Mending Spider” 20. Why Did a Novel About Young People’s Sexual Frustration Become So Famous? | Yu Dafu’s “Sinking” 21. Same-Sex Love? Controversial Brothel Fiction | Yu Dafu’s “Vast Night” and “Autumn Willows” 22. Pursuing Students and Visiting Brothels While Preaching Revolution | A Day in Yu Dafu’s Life 23. Two Celebrated Literary Romances | Yu Dafu’s Diaries and Ling Shuhua’s “The Embroidered Pillow” 24. A Generation’s Education in Love | Lu Xun’s “Regret for the Past” 25. From Gentle Satire to Writing a Great Age | Ye Shengtao’s Ni Huanzhi 26. Stream of Consciousness in Bed Reverses the May Fourth Romance | Mao Dun’s “Creation” 27. Chinese Women Were Fascinated by Pretty Young Men Nearly a Century Ago | Ding Ling’s Miss Sophia’s Diary 28. Revolution for Literature or Literature for Revolution? | Criticizing Lu Xun 29. At Twelve, She Married a Three-Year-Old Husband | Shen Congwen’s “Xiaoxiao” 30. Can Prostitution Become Great Fiction? | Shen Congwen’s “Baizi” and “The Husband” 31. Popular Fiction and the Petty Bourgeois Daydream | Zhang Henshui’s Fate in Tears and Laughter 32. A Terrifying Love: Modern Chinese Literature’s Most Tragic Scene | Ba Jin’s Family 1 33. Why Do Readers Sympathize with or Despise a Protagonist? | Family and “Official’s Tonic” 34. Beyond the Left: Stylish Men and Women in Cosmopolitan Shanghai | Liu Na’ou and Mu Shiying 35. Do You Long for an Encounter on a Rainy Night? | Shi Zhecun’s “The General’s Head” and “A Rainy Evening” 36. Mao Dun’s Contradictions: Understanding 1930s China Through One Work | Midnight 1 37. China’s Finest Novel of Business Warfare | Midnight 2 38. Why Does Kindness Create Tragedy? | Shen Congwen’s Border Town 39. A Five-Thousand-Character Story Stronger Than a Hundred-Thousand-Character Novel | Lao She’s “The Spear That Destroyed the Soul” 40. She Throws Bloody Reality in Your Face | Xiao Hong’s The Field of Life and Death 1 41. Humans and Animals Busy Being Born and Dying | The Field of Life and Death 2 42. Xu Zidong: This Book Is About Me | Lao She’s Rickshaw Boy 43. Lu Xun “Killed” by Misdiagnosis | A Day in Lu Xun’s Life 1 44. Lu Xun: Nonsense! Nonsense! Nonsense! | A Day in Lu Xun’s Life 2 45. A Heroine with Many Men, Already in the 1930s | Li Jieren’s Ripple on Stagnant Water 46. Is There a Mr. Warwick Around You, Forever “Busy”? | Zhang Tianyi’s “Mr. Warwick” 47. A “Comfort Woman” Spy Returns to Her Village | Ding Ling’s “When I Was in Xia Village” 48. What Did Xiao Jun Discuss with Chairman Mao in Yan’an? | A Day in Xiao Jun’s Life 1 49. The Yan’an Forum Through Xiao Jun’s Diary | A Day in Xiao Jun’s Life 2 50. Storytelling That Influenced Chinese Popular Tales | Zhao Shuli’s “The Marriage of Little Erhei” 51. Eileen Chang’s Hong Kong | “Aloeswood Incense” and “Love in a Fallen City” 52. A Story That Exhausts Human Evil | Eileen Chang’s “The Golden Cangue” 53. Men in Eileen Chang: “Good Men” and “Real Men” | “Red Rose, White Rose” Bonus | Xu Zidong: My Life as a Literary Critic 54. The Longest Novel in Modern Chinese Literature | Lu Ling’s Children of the Rich 1 Feedback | Halfway Through One Hundred Novels—Are You Satisfied? 55. A Chinese Novel with Dostoevskian Temperament | Children of the Rich 2 56. “Possibly the Greatest Novel in Modern Chinese Literature” | Qian Zhongshu’s Fortress Besieged 1 National Day Q&A | One Hundred Novels as a Chessboard 57. “Every One of Us Is Fang Hongjian” | Fortress Besieged 2 58. One Book Could Buy Seven Beijing Homes | Mechanisms of Contemporary Literary Production 1 59. Three Basic Forms of Literary Criticism | Contemporary Literary Production 2 60. A Writer’s Daily Life in the 1950s | A Day in Ba Jin’s Life 61. The Only Writer Named a “People’s Artist” | Wang Meng’s The Young Newcomer in the Organization Department 62. Literature’s Purpose: Write People or Reflect Social Reality? | Qian Gurong on “Literature as Human Studies” 63. Class Conflict and Chivalric Bonds | Liang Bin’s Keep the Red Flag Flying 1 64. From Rural Class Struggle to Urban Revolution | Keep the Red Flag Flying 2 65. A Different Kind of War Novel | Wu Qiang’s Red Sun 66. “Red Martial Arts” Fiction of the 1950s | Qu Bo’s Tracks in the Snowy Forest 1 67. Why Do We Prefer the Supporting Hero Yang Zirong? | Tracks in the Snowy Forest and Song of Youth 68. Joining the Revolution Like Falling in Love | Yang Mo’s Song of Youth 2 69. Prison Literature That Sold Eight Million Copies | Luo Guangbin and Yang Yiyan’s Red Crag 70. Two “Hierarchies of Contempt” | Liu Qing’s The Builders 71. The Best Image of Officials in a Hundred Years of Fiction | The Builders 2 72. What Happened the Day Before Lao She’s Suicide? | A Day in Lao She’s Life 73. What Work Can Represent 1966–1976? 74. Why Did Scar Literature Move an Entire Age? | Liu Xinwu’s “The Class Teacher” and Lu Xinhua’s “Scar” 75. Humble Peasants and Well-Meaning Cadres Who Make Things Worse | Gao Xiaosheng’s Stories 76. Why Did a Collaged “Plagiarism” Become a Classic? | Ru Zhijuan’s “Lilies” and “The Misedited Story” 77. To Understand the “Ten Years,” Read This Book | Gu Hua’s A Small Town Called Hibiscus 78. A Red Guard Raids the Home of His Dream Girl | Li Ping’s When the Evening Glow Disappears 79. Waiting Decades Without Holding Hands—Can That Be Love? | Zhang Jie and Zhang Xian 80. Can a Factory Be Run Like a Revolution? | Jiang Zilong’s Manager Qiao Assumes Office 81. Educated Youth in the Countryside: Youth Without Regret or Youth Wasted? | Three Stories 82. How Beautiful Can the Language of Fiction Be? | Ah Cheng’s The Chess Master 83. A Novelist Who Understood Both Literature and Politics | A Day in Han Shaogong’s Life 84. My Hunger, My Suffering | Zhang Xianliang’s Mimosa 85. Is Sex the Only Thing Repressed? | Zhang Xianliang’s Half of Man Is Woman 86. Who Deceived Us? | Shi Tiesheng’s “Story of Going to the Countryside” 87. Saving the Anti-Japanese Novel with a Bastard Hero | Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum 88. You Understand Every Word—but Did You Understand the Story? | Can Xue’s “The Hut on the Mountain” 89. A Cruel but Noble Moral Trial | Ma Yuan’s “The Error” Bonus | Xu Zidong’s New Year Greeting to Listeners 90. “A Weighty Monument to the Nation’s Inner History” | Zhang Wei’s The Ancient Ship 1 91. Am I Merely Writing About Land Reform? | The Ancient Ship 2 92. Why Has This Work Drawn More Attention Twenty Years Later? | Lu Yao’s Ordinary World 1 93. Linking Political-Line Struggle Through Love | Ordinary World 2 94. If Sun Shaoping Did Not Return to the Mine, How Else Could It End? | Ordinary World 3 95. What a Storm of Shouting, Abuse, Fury, and Sophistry! | Wang Meng’s The Butterfly 1 96. A Work That “Puts the Father on Trial” | The Butterfly 2 97. How Does a “National” Become One of “the People”? | Yang Jiang’s Baptism 98. What Does Utopian Love in Rural China Look Like? | Wang Zengqi’s “Ordination” and “Notes from Danao” 99. Women Struggling with Submission, Possession, Filial Duty, and Childbearing | Tie Ning’s The Rose Door 100. “The People” and “Son of the People” | Zhang Chengzhi’s Golden Pasture 101. How Can Modern Revolutionary Language Retell Islamic Sectarian Legend? | Zhang Chengzhi’s History of the Soul 102. From Pretend Hooligans to Real Ones—What Drives the Change? | Wang Shuo’s Troubleshooters and Wild Beast 103. Bodily Pleasure as Our Only Spiritual Weapon | Wang Xiaobo’s The Golden Age 104. The “Obscene Book” That Unexpectedly Became Famous—Does It Shine Today? | Jia Pingwa’s Ruined City 1 105. Can a Writer Depict Such “Bad” People Without Condemning Them? | Ruined City 2 106. To Live Condenses Dozens of Contemporary Novels into One | Yu Hua’s To Live 1 107. “Only Misfortune, No Evil Deeds; Only Virtue, No Heroes” | To Live 2 108. A Rural Chinese “Separation of Powers” | Chen Zhongshi’s White Deer Plain 1 109. “If You Gain Power One Day, Will You Tolerate Us?” | White Deer Plain 2 110. Where The Song of Everlasting Sorrow Was Written | A Day in Wang Anyi’s Life 111. Writing Women or Writing Shanghai? | Wang Anyi’s The Song of Everlasting Sorrow Livestream Replay | Xu Zidong: Read More Books and Your Heart Will Not Be Troubled 112. Bitter and Kind, Cruel and Ignorant | Yan Lianke’s Lenin’s Kisses 113. A Chinese Story in Space | Liu Cixin’s The Three-Body Problem 1 114. A Chinese Solution to a Global Problem | The Three-Body Problem 2 115. Officials in a Hundred Years of Chinese Fiction | Reflections 1 116. Intellectuals, Peasants, and Workers in a Hundred Years of Chinese Fiction | Reflections 2 117. Merchants and Women in a Hundred Years of Chinese Fiction | Reflections 3 118. Beautiful Scenery and Bloody Battlefields, New Women and Old Virtues | Sun Li’s “Lotus Creek”