MCLC: new novel in Shanghai dialect

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: new novel in Shanghai dialect
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Source: China Daily (6/12/13):
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/life/2013-06/12/content_16610193.htm

New novel sparks interest in dialect literature
By Wu Ni in Shanghai (China Daily)

Editor and writer Jin Yucheng says he hopes his novel, Blossoms, written
in the Shanghai dialect, can help protect the language.

A newly published novel written in the Shanghai dialect has aroused much
interest in using the dialect in literature.

Jin Yucheng, 61, a senior editor of Shanghai Literature, saturated his
300,000-word novel Blossoms with Shanghai flavor by writing it in the
local dialect.

The novel depicts the lives of Shanghai people in two periods: from the
1960s to the end of the"cultural revolution" (1966-76) and from the 1980s
to the start of the 21st century. The two periods appear alternately
throughout the novel, presenting a panorama of old Shanghai and its
changes through 30 years.

The story is made up of many independent stories, which link up as the
lives of the main characters unfold.

In the novel, Jin creates his unique narration by using dialogue to reveal
the plot and portray characters. The sentences are short, the language
clear and the dialogue written without quotation marks.

"These are actually the traditional narration characteristics of Chinese
literature," Jin said. "They are rarely used today, which makes them
special.

"Every writer should have his or her own unique language and mine is the
Shanghai dialect in Blossoms," he said, adding that the tendency of
language homogeneity is harmful for novel writing.

Blossoms can be read through fluently and vividly with the Shanghai
dialect, while posing no obstacle to readers outside of the city.

"The language of Blossoms is not exactly pure Shanghai dialect," Jin said.
During writing, he left out some slang and dialects difficult to express
in the written language so that Mandarin speakers could understand.

Zheng Li, an editor with the Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House,
said that what makes the language of Blossoms so special is that it's
similar to Putonghua, so that readers from the northern part of China can
taste the intense aroma of the Shanghai flavor. Although, there are still
some difficult to understand areas that only local readers can appreciate.

Blossoms won top prize at the Chinese Literature Media Awards this April
and ranked first in the China Novel Association's 2012 list of Novels of
the Year.

It is possible that the novel's success will influence more writers to
write in the Shanghai dialect, but Jin admitted that it was no easy task.

"You have to think in the context of the Shanghai dialect and recreate the
language so that readers outside of Shanghai can understand it, which
involves a lot of research and practice," he said.

Before Blossoms, another novel written in the Shanghai dialect titled Lane
by author Hu Baotan, 34, was published in 2011. Unlike Blossoms, Lane is
more difficult for readers outsideof Shanghai, who must refer to the
annotation and pronunciation at the end of each story.

Many renowned Chinese writers would use some dialects in their works to
add local flavor. For example, Jia Pingwa wrote his Qin Opera with a lot
of obscure dialect and idioms of Shaanxi province, and nearly all of
Beijing writer Wang Shuo's novels have strong marks of the Beijing
dialect, which make the works vivid and amusing.