With the 1989 Beijing massacre fading from popular memory in the
West, China from the mid-1990s to a few years ago felt more open
than ever to global trade, communication, travel, and cultural and
educational exchanges. There was even talk in the mainstream press
that China was heading toward a more democratic future. It was
during this second Sino-Western honeymoon that authors in the US,
Canada, France, the UK, and elsewhere began writing mystery fiction
set in contemporary China in their regional languages. These "China
mysteries"—crime, detective, and mystery thriller novels that
take place in China but were not written or published
there—formed a new genre of popular fiction that highlighted the
world’s hopes and fears after Tiananmen. The multinational and
multicultural writers of China mysteries, among them ex-PRC
nationals like Qiu Xiaolong, Zhang Xinxin, and Diane Wei Liang,
converged on the China Mainland to negotiate political and cultural
complexities through crime fiction plotlines. Their books emerged
from Western lineages of the modern novel and popular genre
fiction—with Chinese contributions—and depended on Western
commercial publishing models shaped by cultural, national,
political, and economic factors. This work examines more than a
hundred China mysteries—many describing and analyzing social and
economic changes at the center of modern life in China—to provide
a brief history of the genre and analyze the formulaic and original
elements of the mysteries, including their attention to matters of
location, social content, characterization, history, and biography.
It also highlights the role of "information" acquisition as a
motivation for readers and authors of popular fiction, which has
become a topic of discussion in Chinese literature studies. With
its timely commentary on Sino-Western relations as presented
through crime fiction, China Mysteries will appeal to students and
scholars of contemporary Chinese literature and culture, as well as
fans of crime novels and others who are curious about the global
dimensions of the genre and how it complicates our understanding of
"world literature.
General
Imprint: |
University of Hawaii Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
December 2023 |
Authors: |
Jeffrey C. Kinkley
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152mm (L x W) |
Pages: |
277 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8248-9520-4 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-8248-9520-7 |
Barcode: |
9780824895204 |
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