Literature in the Post-Mao Years

The Chinese literary scene some ten years after the death of Mao Zedong exhibited a variety and vitality unprecedented in the history of the People’s Republic. Economic reforms, greater intellectual freedom, a massive Western influence, and the general spiritual climate had combined to pave the way for the change from the increasingly uniform, basically normative and politically directed literary output of the earlier decades. Readers could now choose from a wide range of literary works, from pure art to pure entertainment, from didactic stories to pointed social criticism. As a result, Chinese literature had become a much more sensitive and subtle indicator of social and intellectual change than was possible when its main function was to reflect party policy. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.