Why do people in socialist China read and write literary works? Earlier
studies in Western Sinology have approached Chinese texts from the
socialist era as portraits of society, as keys to the tug-of-war of
dissent, or, more recently, as pursuit of "pure art." The Uses of
Literature looks broadly and empirically at these and many other "uses"
of literature from the points of view of authors, editors, political
authorities, and several kinds of readers. Perry Link, author of
Evening Chats in Beijing, considers texts ranging from elite "misty"
poetry to underground hand-copied volumes (shouchauben) and shows in
concrete detail how people who were involved with literature sought to
teach, learn, enjoy, explore, debate, lead, control, and resist.
Using the late 1970s and early 1980s as an entree to the workings of
China's "socialist literary system," the author shows how that system
held sway from 1950 until around 1990, when an encroaching market
economy gradually but fundamentally changed it. In addition to providing
a definitive overview of how the socialist Chinese literary system
worked, Link offers comparisons to the similar system in the Soviet
Union. In the final chapter, the book seeks to explain how the word
"good" was used and understood when applied to literary works in such
systems.
Combining aspects of cultural and literary studies, The Uses of
Literature will reward anyone interested in the literature of modern
China or how creativity is affected by a "socialist literary system."
