The Subversive Self in Modern Chinese Literature The Creation Society's Reinvention of the Japanese Shishosetsu

In this book, Keaveney explores Japan's role in shaping Chinese cultural modernity by exploring the impact of the shishosetsu (I-novel) on Chinese literature. By comparing and contrasting what appear to be similar narrative modes between the shishosetsu and work coming out of the Creation Society, a literary society formed by Chinese educated in Japan, Keaveney explores how Chinese writers both appropriated and reconceptualized this Japanese approach. By letting their work retain both self-referentiality and articulations of social concerns, the Chinese authors were able to make the form far more political than it ever was in the hands of Japanese writers.

Christopher T. Keaveney is an Associate Professor of Japanese at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. His articles, published in Sino-Japanese Studies and the online journal E-ASPAC, revolve around cultural relations between Japan and China in the prewar period.