We hope this message finds you well. We would like to inform you that after careful consideration we have decided to extend all the deadlines for the Yan Lianke Studies volume due to the current Covid-19 pandemic.
Over the last few months, we have received numerous replies from enthusiastic colleagues willing to take part in this project. However, due to the current pandemic, quite a few scholars have kindly requested more time to write their contribution. We have already accepted several high-quality proposals. However, we would like to extend the deadline to allow all scholars wishing to participate in our project to have plenty of time to send us their proposals and write their contribution.
Yan Lianke Studies
Date: June 2, 2020
We are seeking contributions to an edited volume focusing on Yan Lianke studies.
The present edited volume focuses on how Yan Lianke has been received in and beyond mainland China, whilst presenting views of how Yan Lianke has been understood, interpreted, and appreciated in Japan, the US, and Europe.
The volume will also include three new articles written by Yan Lianke himself.
Yan Lianke is an internationally renowned Chinese writer. Born in 1958, he is one of the most prolific writers in the Chinese literary landscape. Often defined, and at times acclaimed, as the most irreverent and censored writer at home, he has won prestigious literary awards in China and abroad, including the Lu Xun Award, the Lao She Award, the Asia Week Best Ten Books Award, the Dream of the Red Chamber Award, the Franz Kafka Award and the Huazong Award. It is with the novel Lenin’s Kisses (Shou huo 受活, 2004) that he was consecrated as an internationally renowned writer. Le Monde calls him one of the giants of literature and The Guardian a master of sarcasm. He has also been shortlisted for an array of prices including the International Man Booker Prize, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Prix Femina Etranger.
The Father of Mythorealism
Yan regards himself as a rebel son of mainstream realism and coined the term “mythorealism” (shenshi zhuyi 神實主義) to elucidate the influence of Kafkaesque and Márquezan combinations of reality and absurdity in contemporary Chinese literature. As Yan Lianke writes himself in a note in The Explosion Chronicles: “mythorealism captures a hidden internal logic within China’s reality”. In his anthology of critical essays, The Discovery of Fiction (Faxian xiaoshuo 發現小説), Yan writes:
Mythorealism . . . abandons the seemingly logical relations of real life, and explores a “non-existent” truth, an invisible truth, and a truth concealed by truth. Mythorealism keeps a distance from any prevailing realism. The mythorealist connection with reality does not lie in straightforward cause-and-effect links, but rather relies on human souls, minds and the authors’ extraordinary fabrications based on reality…Imaginations, metaphors, myths, legends, dreams, fantasy, demonization, and transplantation born from everyday life and social reality can all serve as mythorealist methods and channels. [181–82, translated by Weijie Song (2016)]
Yan Lianke’s mythorealism challenges accepted conventions of linear cause-and-effect relationship. In The Discovery of Fiction, Yan makes distinctions between “complete cause-and-effect” (quan yinguo 全因果), “partial cause-and-effect” (ban yinguo 半因果), “internal cause-and-effect” (nei yinguo 内因果), and “zero cause-and-effect” (ling yinguo 零因果) arguing that we should focus on an illogical logic and an irrational rationality beyond conventional cause-and-effect associations (171–73).
Significance of the Volume
Yan Lianke is by far the most prolific writer in present-day China as well as one of its most prominent avant-gardists. He is an author whose literary works have enjoyed an enormous readership and have caught much critical attention not only in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan but also in many other countries around the world.
In 2011, a film adaptation of Dream of Ding Village (Dingzhuang meng 丁莊夢), one of his most acclaimed novels, was released in China with the title Love for Life. However, Yan Lianke’s full name was not even mentioned in the credits, due do the fact that the book had been previously censored.
This volume, focusing on one of the most important figures in contemporary Chinese literary history, will be a landmark resource for scholars in Asian studies, literary criticism, and cultural studies.
During the past decade, an increasing number of international scholars have conducted research on Yan Lianke, introducing and exploring different aspects of his life and works. Therefore, it is opportune to reflect on the status quo of the existing studies on Yan Lianke’s literature creation, writing style and narrative discourse. For this purpose, we especially welcome contributions including, but not limited to, the following aspects:
- Biographical aspects;
- Realism and mythorealism;
- Writing styles;
- Research on Yan Lianke in China;
- Research on Yan Lianke outside of China;
- Narrative discourse;
- Poetics of melancholy and nostalgia;
- Imaginary nostalgia, as defined by David Der-wei Wang (1992);
- The relationship between nature and human beings;
- Religion, with a special emphasis on Yan Lianke’s most recent literary achievement Heart Sutra (Xinjing 心經);
- Symbolism and Censorship; etc.
Please submit your proposals, including a 300-word abstract, to the following address:
You will receive notifications of acceptance of abstracts on or before September 15, 2020. If your proposal is accepted, you will be requested to submit a complete essay (between 7,000 and 12,000 words) by the end of January, 2021. All manuscripts will be subject to a peer-review process before they are accepted for publication. More details on the paper submission process will be provided once your proposal has been accepted.
For any further inquiries, please contact the editorial team at yanlianke2020@gmail.com
Key deadlines are as follows:
– Abstract submission: August 30, 2020
– Initial confirmation with a title/abstract: September 15, 2020
– Expected first draft paper due to the editors: January 30, 2021 (between 7,000 and 12,000 words.)
– Expected publication date: August-September, 2021
Submission language: English
We look forward to your participation in this project.
Kind regards,
Dr. Riccardo Moratto, Hunan Normal University <riccardomoratto@gmail.com>
Dr. Howard Y. F. Choy, Hong Kong Baptist University <choyyf@gmail.com>