title: A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature (paperback)
author: Z. Hong
description: "There is no doubt that this volume, along with the <i>Humanities in China Library</i> series it inaugurates, should serve as a model for further translations of influential Chinese-language scholarship in years to come." - Rossella Ferrari, SOAS, University of London (<i>China Quarterly</i>)<br /><br />"Hong (Peking Univ.) offers an excellent, dual-purpose book: it serves as both a textbook and a comprehensive history of Chinese literature from the 1940s to 1996...Highly recommended."<br />- <i>Choice</i><br /><br />..".[A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature's] significance is the scope of its overview of mainland Chinese fiction, poetry, prose, and aspects of theater through the mid-1990s in their documented institutional and critical context... Hong's history is well documented, with annotated citations of both criticisms from the time the works were published and from more recent scholars of the contemporary period, especially Huang Ziping and Zhu Zhai. There is welcome attention to a range of valuable topics, from institutional structures, biographical notes, translations of foreign literature and other texts available through the restricted "internal distribution" (neibu) system of publication, unofficial, underground texts of the Cultural Revolution era, and so forth... [Translator] Michael M. Day's translation greatly enhances the value of Hong's book as a reference text by adding [added] a bibliography, glossary, and index and [shifted] Hong's endnotes to footnotes. [This text is] a solid and comprehensive survey that will stand as an important reference and source for new scholarship... [and] could provide a centerpiece for an engaging and productive course on the field." <br />- Edward Gunn, Cornell University (<i>MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright September 2008)</i>)
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  **Praise for _The Shortest History of China_ **
  
  
  ‘Read this in a fever-fuelled blitz, look up and I promise you that China –
  and indeed, the world – will make more sense.’ **—Benjamin Law, author of _The
  Family Law_ and _Gaysia_ **
  
  
  ‘A fast-paced and witty survey of China’s past, written with spirit and verve.
  Jaivin knows her stuff but wears her erudition lightly. Iconoclastic,
  informative and more attentive to female figures than many comparable works.
  Highly recommended.’ **—Jeffrey Wasserstrom, author _of Vigil: Hong Kong on
  the Brink_ **
  
  
  ‘It’s no mean feat to cover the entire history of China in fifteen chapters,
  but Linda Jaivin manages it with panache. Succinct, lucid and with a keen eye
  for detail, this slim book is an indispensable primer on China.’ **—Louisa
  Lim, author of _The People’s Republic of Amnesia_ **
  
  
  ‘War, revolution, rise and fall, emperors, tyrants: China is more than a
  nation and bigger than a myth. It demands 