Realistic works

    "Government Officials" concerns reality, politics and the lives of people from the lower strata of society in an urban setting. The author Zhang Ping exposes the formation of a group with vested interests, their alliance with the patriarchal clan culture, and how they intensify social conflicts and block the development of democracy. Unlike many superficial works of the same theme, "Government Officials" is politically and culturally insightful.

    Rural life remains an important theme among novelists. Yan Lianke's "Suffering" depicts a disadvantaged group in the countryside, about whom the author has much knowledge and sympathy.

    Yan is not satisfied with what one finds on the surface of rural life, but tries to explore the people's spiritual reality, to which end he sometimes draws on absurd plots. To combine the most indigenous with the most modern is perhaps what he is pursuing.

    Yan says that he "writes because of fear," and he writes about "farmers' fears," but his miserable images often break through the last border of aestheticism. This "aesthetics of miserableness" is a subject that needs further study.

    In parallel with the rural theme, the spiritual predicament, ethical concerns, and tragedies and comedies of the loves of urban people make for another broad stage for literature.

    "Blue Fox" displays Wang Meng's thorough understanding of the spiritual condition of Chinese intellectuals over the last 20 years. Ning Ken's "Gate of Silence" looks at the thought-provoking "symptoms" of a "psychopath."

    The conflict between men and women remains one of the most enduring in literature. Wang Hailing's "The Chinese-style Divorce" - which ran as a successful television series - probes the irrational and subconscious aspects of the man-woman relationship, misplaced values, and the nausea of everyday life. But the transition between the two languages of the television play and novel is a problem which the author has not fully resolved.

    Henan Province's woman writer Qiao Ye's "I Really Love You" is about twin sisters who left the countryside swept up in the wave of urbanization, only to find themselves forced into prostitution in the city. In the miserable circumstances they find themselves, they turn from resistance to indifference. The author does not try to exhibit human desire, but writes in a rather understated way, which cries out the tragedy of their lives.

    Other memorable novels of 2004 include Ge Fei's "Face like a Peach Blossom," Dong Libo's "Fragrance of the Rice" and Hai Yan's "River Runs like Blood."