The Novel Shengsi pilao by Mo Yan and Historical Fiction in the Contemporary Chinese Literature

The novel Shengsi pilao, written by a contemporary Chinese author Mo Yan, is a free continuation of authorʼs preceding writings recounting the lives of family clans in the Shandong province countryside during the 20th century. The novel employs a specific literary style in exploring history of the PCR from 1949 to 2000, using a story of a landownerʼs soul reincarnating itself to several different animals to be finally born as an extraordinary child. Some of authorʼs preceding works were characterized as "new historical fiction (NHF)", a wave of last century late 80ʼs Chinese fiction. NHF revives some of traditional Chinese fiction narrative techniques and introduces certain literary innovations at the same time. Thus it differs from earlier historical fiction, both traditional and modern. Its main characteristic is deconstruction of authorial representation, challenge to legitimacy of the official history and negation of Chinese modernity. This theses brings forward an analysis of narrative techniques, subjects and general meaning of the novel within the context of authorʼs previous work and considers its relation to NHF