MCLC: fiction by Jueluo Kanglin

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: fiction by Jueluo Kanglin
***********************************************************

Source: Altaic Storytelling (5/18/14): http://bruce-humes.com/archives/744

“The Mysterious Realm of Lop Nur” and “Curse of Kanas Lake”: Xinjiang’s
Answer to Tibetan Fiction Fever?
By Bruce Humes

The phenomenal success of He Ma’s The Tibet Code (《藏地密码》, 何马
著)—reportedly 
over 3m volumes sold—has spawned a host of thrillers and mysteries driven
by a similar fascination with Tibetan history, religion and relics. The
popular 3-volume Tibetan Mastiff(藏獒) by Yang Zhijun (杨治军), now an
animated 
film 
<http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1802&MainCatID=18
&id=20110602000001> co-produced by a Sino-Japanese partnership, is just
one example.

But Tibet is certainly not the only area of the People’s Republic rich in
non-Han culture and history with strong potential for such fiction. Two
novels by former journalist Jueluo Kanglin (觉罗康林), including the newly
launched 罗布泊秘境 (literally, The Mysterious Realm of Lop Nur), are bound
to 
raise Xinjiang’s profile among aficionados of the “exploration thriller”
genre.

As a site engendering curiosity and even fascination, Lop Nur’s
credentials are impeccable and ancient: archaeologists unearthed the
(controversial) Tarim mummies along the lake (Lop Nur means “Lop lake”);
explorers such as Marco Polo, Ferdinand von Richthofen, Nikolai
Przhevalsky, Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein all set foot in the area; and more
recently, Chinese scientist Peng Jiamu disappeared there (1980), and
Chinese explorer Yu Chunshun died trying to walk across Lop Nur (1996).

In a recent interview about his new novel (锡伯族作家),
<http://www.qiucinews.com/dushu/content/2014-05/08/content_636139.htm>
Jueluo Kanglin mentioned several international explorers and others such
as Japan’s Zuicho Tachibana and France’s Pierre Gabriel Édouard Bonvalot,
but the author did not detail which aspects of the Lop Nur “legend” he
delves into in his novel.

Unlike He Ma and Yang Zhijun who are Han writing about Tibet, Jueluo
Kanglin, the author of The Mysterious Realm of Lop Nur and Curse of Kanas
Lake, is a member of the Xibe ethnicity born in Xinjiang’s Yili, and
reportedly speaks Xibe as well as several Turkic languages, including
Uyghur, Kazakh and Kyrgyz.

The Xibe’s roots lie in the Nonni and Songhua river valleys in central
Manchuria, but in 1764 they were garrisoned by Qing Emperor Qianlong in
newly conquered areas of then eastern Turkestan (today’s Xinjiang) to
guard the new border. The Xibe spoke a Tungusic tongue which is a dialect
of Manchu, and it is still a living if endangered language (see Language
of Exile <http://bruce-humes.com/archives/584>).

Curse of Kanas Lake (喀纳斯湖咒), published in 2012, highlights legends of
the 
Tuvan people surrounding this beautiful lake (now a preserve) which is
located in Altay Prefecture where Xinjiang borders on Kazakhstan, Mongolia
and Russia.

The tale takes place in modern Kanas. A petroglyph uncovered by a flood is
taken away by an anthropologist—ostensibly for research—but eventually
treated as a money-making oddity that is exhibited in a museum. But the
local elders are very disturbed by this, and the Shamaness believes that
the slab is inhabited by the spirit of an ancient folk hero. Removing the
stone slab from its natural environment disturbs the natural order of
things, and presages a series of disasters.