MCLC: Yan Lianke criticizes Chinese intellectuals

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: James Keefer <jamesrk at shaw.ca>
Subject: Yan Lianke criticizes Chinese intellectuals
*************************************************************

Source: The Guardian (2/6/13):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/06/chinese-writers-failing-censors
hip-concerns

Chinese intellectuals avoid key issues amid censorship fears, says author
Award-winning satirist Yan Lianke says Chinese intellectuals and writers
must push leaders to embrace social reform
By Tania Branigan

Chinese writers have shirked their responsibilities in the face of tougher
censorship over the past 10 years, one of the country's authors has said.

Yan Lianke, whose bleakly humorous novel Lenin's Kisses is published in
Britain on Thursday, had two books banned in the past decade. He said it
had been easier to publish in the five years before that.

He also criticised the intelligentsia – including last year's Nobel
literature prize-winner Mo Yan – for failing to speak out on important
issues. "Chinese intellectuals haven't taken enough responsibility. They
always have an excuse, saying they don't have a reason to talk or don't
have the environment ... If they could all stand up, they would have a
loud voice," he told the Guardian.

Reformers pushed hard for change in the runup to the decennial power
transition last year, suggesting the country's new leaders may be willing
to embrace political as well as economic reform. So far, however, there is
no indication of such a shift.

"Each time, during the transition of China's political leaders, Chinese
people always have great hopes and then are disappointed. This time, as
before, people have hope for the new generation, but it will take time to
see whether they will disappoint the Chinese people again," said the
novelist, who was shortlisted last month for the Man Booker International
Prize <http://www.themanbookerprize.com/people/yan-lianke>.

He added: "One book being published doesn't tell you the whole system is
getting better; one book being banned doesn't mean publishing is [more]
strongly controlled."

Yan spent 26 years as a writer in the army and has won China's foremost
literary honours. Yet he is one of the country's fiercest satirists. In
his novella Serve the People, a young soldier and his superior's wife fuel
their illicit passion by smashing and desecrating the words and images of
Chairman Mao. Its ban cannot have been a great surprise.

More intriguing is that Lenin's Kisses escaped the same fate. The book
details the ordeal of villagers in the Maoist era, and their suffering as
greed and consumerism replace political imperatives. Its redoubtable
heroine realises her community is better off outside both official control
and heartless modern capitalism.

Its absurd plot is oddly plausible to anyone familiar with the grand
schemes and great scandals of Chinese officialdom. An ambitious,
narcissistic cadre organises disabled villagers into a travelling freak
show, raising money to buy Lenin's embalmed corpse and turn his county
into a tourist destination.

"Chinese people probably would buy Lenin's body, or even the dead body of
a minister from England," Yan said. "As long as it's for development,
everything is reasonable and could happen in China, such as forced
demolitions of people's homes [which happened to Yan] ... Corruption also
looks reasonable in Chinese eyes."

Some hope Chinese literature may break through to a wider international
readership after Mo's Nobel prize last year, but Yan said its prospects
depended on the quality of the work rather than a short-term boost.

He added: "I was very complimentary about Mo Yan's work, but as an author
and intellectual I don't think he has done enough."

Mo has been criticised for his closeness to authorities, sparking a debate
about writers' responsibilities. Yan added: "He was quite free to write
before he won the Nobel. Afterwards he had pressure [from inside China].
The world expected him to say something that he didn't say."

Asked if he meant the belief that Mo should address political pressure,
censorship or Liu Xiaobo, the jailed Nobel peace prize laureate, Yan
replied: "All of those things."

He said he had also fallen short, noting: "I understand the Chinese
political and cultural environment well. I understand people who don't use
their voice. As an intellectual and author I should require myself to do
it first. If I don't do enough, I can't require other authors to do so.
There's always a reason. There's always one book or another; timing. But I
think as an author I could have taken more responsibility and I didn't."

He still regrets self-censoring when he wrote Dream of Ding Village, which
deals with the blood-selling scandal that led to mass HIV infections in
Henan province. He wanted to ensure it was published, he said; but now his
priority was reaching the highest literary standard.

A recent novel was turned down by 26 mainland publishers. His work in
progress – "probably the most absurd but most real that I have written" –
is unlikely to please the Chinese public anyway, Yan noted. In part, it
explores their love-hate relationship with developed countries such as
Japan and western nations.

Last autumn, amid anti-Japanese protests over the territorial dispute
about the Senkaku, or Diaoyu islands, he praised Japanese author Haruki
Murakami's warnings against nationalism and said he felt ashamed of his
slow response 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/opinion/yan-lianke-words-to-soothe-asias
-tensions.html>.

"Chinese people have become richer and China is stronger than before, but
Chinese people think about the history of China being treated badly by
other countries; by the US, the UK and Japan ... China can't beat the US
or other countries; they can only wave a fist at Japan," he said.

"This feeling has been suppressed, you could say, for 100 years. China is
on the way towards pride, but also arrogance."