Born in the city of Lengshuijiang in Hunan Province in 1986, Wu Qi is one of the leading literary figures of his generation. He has worked as a journalist at Southern People Weekly and Across, and as the translator of James Baldwin. He currently works at One-Way Space (Danxiang Kongjian 单向空间), an independent bookstore in Beijing, where he serves as the chief editor of One-Way Street Journal (Dandu 单读) and as a board member of the One-Way Street Foundation. The journal specializes in cultivating avant-garde literature as well as the new worker writing in China. Its title is an homage to Walter Benjamin’s 1928 essay. In 2022, Wu Qi published a book-length conversation, Self as Method, with the anthropologist Xiang Biao, which probed contemporary Chinese subjectivity and literary expression. A second volume, translated by David Ownby, will appear next year.
Among Wu Qi’s talents, his skill at interviewing is widely recognized by his peers. Instead of asking Wu to interview someone for this issue, Granta decided to interview the interviewer.
Editor:
Does literature in China today occupy a different place than it did in your parents’ generation?
Wu Qi:
For my parents’ generation – they were born in the 1950s and 1960s – writing literature was still aspirational. It was still a dream held by many people. Now, it occupies a lesser place in Chinese culture. It no longer has the same exalted status. One can have a very basic and stable career as a writer, or one can storm to great fame. Or, of course, one can be scorned.
The population interested in literature is still quite large, with brand new writers appearing every year. A novel that sells well can make a writer rich in a matter of days. My feeling is that literature today is no longer as abstract and mysterious as it once was – it no longer commands a central position. It has become more tangible, palpable, and arguably even more democratized. But it has also become more vulgar. Once anything starts to be associated with money, sales, fame and power, it is like a cat discovering a mouse. The rules of the game become more complicated.
Editor:
What attracted you to literature in the beginning? What writers of fiction were you first exposed to, growing up in Hunan Province in the 1980s?
Wu Qi:
Books were scarce before college, but the social climate of the economic opening of the 1980s still had an underlying influence. Even if you didn’t read at all, you’d agree that literary classics were good and important. When I was a kid, I would occasionally immerse myself in big books like Dream of the Red Chamber and The Count of Monte Cristo.
The teachers in middle school encouraged us all to pursue these great books – to read beyond our textbooks. All through school we heard about the Chinese classics, as well as the Western classics – people like Charles Dickens. It might be that you couldn’t actually find copies of all these books, or read many of them, but you heard the names. You knew there was a different world out there.
When I entered Beijing University in 2004, and first had access to its library, I cherished the opportunity to catch up on pioneering literature. It was a frenzy of reading. My peers and I were all reading the works of Mo Yan, Yu Hua, Su Tong, Wang Anyi, Chi Zijian, Han Shaogong and Han Dong, the writers of the previous generation. I still remember where their books were shelved in the university library. We were captivated by their storytelling skills and their style, but they also collectively demonstrated the possibility of a future that involved reading and writing books, one where writers directly faced and even criticized social reality. For me, this was the possibility promised by literature. That’s where this all began. I think for my generation, we all share this story, more or less.
Editor:
What about the generation below you – people born in the 1990s and the 2000s?
Wu Qi:
They have a different mindset. What they see is the huge success of these writers from the 1980s and 1990s, financially as well as culturally. But the literary value of this work is less clear to them. They struggle to find writing that addresses what is really happening in society now.
So there is a sort of generational gap opening up. The younger generation have stopped hearing about these older names in terms of literature – rather, they hear of them as success stories. There’s a disconnect. If you really talk to the younger generation – people here in China who actually read, who care about literature, who care about society – you’ll find they are not talking about those classic works. They’re waiting for their own story to be written.
Editor:
If I were a young aspiring writer in China, not particularly political, what would I do now? What is a standard trajectory?
Wu Qi:
First, you’d start with the internet. Some people emerge with a real bang online, especially with genre writing – horror, crime or love stories. But if you’re talking about literary writing, then you would probably start by looking at literary journals. Official journals are still the main channel for young writers starting their careers. There are also some smaller local journals in different provinces. And people can always come to us, at One-Way, and other smaller independent places.
As a young writer you have to build up your network. Get to know editors, or professors – and you can quickly become connected, because the official literature community is very small. You can also try to get to know the members and even presidents of the various Writers’ Associations, which would give you a much better chance of having your stories published.
If you’re in your twenties, of course, you’re going to hate this. You’re going to hate that this kind of networking is so mainstream. It’s not the only road to success, but it’s a major one. And you will probably persuade yourself to take part, because you will find it so much easier than anything else.
Even ten years ago the story would have been different. Back then, we still had market-driven newspapers and magazines.
Editor:
So ten years ago you wouldn’t have to go through, say, the Writers’ Association of Hunan Province, or be connected to various older, well-known writers?
Wu Qi:
Back then the best route for people who wanted to write was probably to study journalism – to study it and to work at it, as some kind of alternative to literature. Starting around 2012, newspapers and media organizations began to be regulated by the state once again. Journalists were no longer allowed to do the same kind of stories as before. So the press lost much of its positive, productive function to the writing community, and long-form journalists began losing their jobs. Many of them now focus on books instead of
long articles.
Editor:
Because book publishers will still publish and pay for that kind of writing?
Wu Qi:
Yes – there’s no other way to do it. Of course you can always self-publish online, for free. But then you can’t make a living. Publishing a book has become one of the few options left open. But to do that you need to have a book in the first place, right? You need an open span of time to be able to finish a book – it’s not like writing an article. And also, if you are a new author, it’s hard to make a career based on the money you earn from books.
Editor:
How do writers negotiate censorship? Even such established figures as Yu Hua and Mo Yan have had books banned on the Mainland that are published elsewhere.
Wu Qi:
A constant negotiation goes on between writers and the authorities. Every writer knows where the line is. The decisions of writing are major decisions – major political, career-defining decisions. It’s a question of whether you want to have a professional life here in Mainland China. If you say or write something wrong, and it’s published and publicized, you know the consequences. It’s all quite clear. Writers know the deal.
Editor:
How did you decide to start your own journal?
Wu Qi:
Journalists like me, editors like me, we all needed to find a way to work. I started at the One-Way Street bookstore, which was launched by a group of former journalists, who were still enjoying well-paid careers. They could support an independent bookstore by themselves at that point, and I started working there as an editor.
I thought it was going to be temporary. I thought some other media organization would emerge, but instead the new generation all moved toward social media. Now you need to be a kind of influencer – what people here actually call a ‘Key Opinion Leader’ (KOL) – to support yourself in the media industry. I decided to stay on, and continue using my traditional media skills to edit, translate, and publish.
Editor:
When one strolls around Shanghai, there are plenty of bookstores, but some of them seem like palaces for Instagram. Their function seems entirely unrelated to literature or reading. How have bookstores changed in China in your lifetime?
Wu Qi:
To start with, in the 1980s and 1990s, we only had one kind of bookstore, the Xinhua bookstore. These were state-owned and there was one in every single city and town. It was one of the only places where you could purchase books. The majority of the books in the shop were geared toward education. That was the story when I was growing up.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we started to have market-driven media after a series of reforms. There was suddenly space for smaller, experimental bookstores. There was a period of growth and opportunity. And then came the tightening of regulations.
Nowadays, independent bookstores struggle to support themselves by book sales alone. Ninety percent of the bookstores in China cannot support themselves simply by selling books. They have to sell coffees or bags or whatever to make a profit. That’s the reality. There are different reasons for that – one is that we don’t have regulations on book prices, and online platforms sell books at a very cheap price.
What makes One-Way different is that we publish books as well. We’re trying to find another angle on the cultural industry. We also run our own literature awards, distinct from the official ones. We have our own cultural foundations – we have a foundation that funds young writers to go to different countries, to travel and to write.
Editor:
One-Way put out a special edition of worker writing. What led you to do this?
Wu Qi:
There’s been a lot of critical reflection about the cultural elite of the 1980s, especially about how it seemed perfectly normal for middle-class writers to tell the stories of the underclass. But the presumed creator of literature has been changing. Because of the internet and other democratic openings, it matters less now where you come from, or whether or not you have a literature major – authors from different classes have started to write their own stories, shifting the traditional definition of literature.
I see the popularity of ‘diceng wenxue’ (‘bottom-rung writing’) as an opening for a more radical social intervention. The topics and targets of their writing – such as the experience of working as a laborer in a construction site, as a nanny for a rich family, as a parent in an urban village – and the very fact that all these workers and nannies can actually write, will deeply sting the vested interests of this society and its literary system, whether they are capitalist or socialist. You’ll find those two -isms can be humbled in the face of this reality.
Editor:
There was once a tradition of proletarian writing across the industrialized world (even in America in writers such as Mike Gold). Was this writing in China basically the same thing as social realism? What happened to this tradition? Is ‘diceng wenxue’ the continuity of this proletarian writing, or is it something else?
Wu Qi:
I feel that proletarian literature is more avowedly ideological than social realism, both in literature and art. Social realism is mainly descriptive and presentational rather than offering a set of ready-made frameworks and solutions, and therefore less motivated to mobilize, and less revolutionary.
In the first half of the twentieth century in China, proletarian literature may have been more popular, and especially revered by the officials, but as the socialist revolution declared itself a success and continued to self-declare its successes, the faith in this literature fizzled out. A success story can never be the story of the true underclass.
I would say that the literature of the lower strata that is back in vogue in Chinese society today is much closer to social realism; that is to say, they are confronting and writing about the most brutal and unforgiving parts of Chinese society in the second half of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first century, and illuminating the real price of the high-speed economic development of this period. It’s a reality that’s difficult to summarize in theory.
Editor:
Isn’t there something ironic about worker literature being an almost underground phenomenon in a socialist state?
Wu Qi:
It’s definitely ironic. This literature comes from the bottom, and is celebrated by the lower and middle classes, but it is not particularly welcomed by the higher rungs of society, and not by the authorities.
The avant-garde writers of the 1980s are now at the top of society politically, economically, and socially. They seem disconnected from this very new, very contemporary literature movement in China.
Editor:
And TikTok?
Wu Qi:
Of course. Being a writer has always been about saying something about the current or past moment through your writing. Now we have social media, and different kinds of media interviews – a bounty of means of expression. But the writers at the top have ceased fire.
Editor:
What do you think the strength of 1980s writing was?
Wu Qi:
The emergence of the 1980s generation of writers was a great liberation, a turning point, which was as important as the economic reforms and ‘opening-up’ of that period. Had it not been for them, our generation would not have had the vision, much less the imagination, to dream that our work could converge with the currents of world literature. That it would be possible to re-establish a dialogue between the East and the West.
The 1980s generation provided an existential confirmation for the Chinese literary world. They showed it was not necessary to go into the military or politics to make a difference. They proved there were prospects in life for those who simply loved literature.
Editor:
What about the weaknesses of the 1980s generation?
Wu Qi:
Some of the most celebrated writing from this period was politically cynical, male-centered and in thrall to traditionalism. As a new generation of writers confronts new realities, it’s hard for them to turn to the experiences of those writing from the 1980s.
The pain, anguish and despair felt by everyone today, the identification with and pursuit of more modern values such as equality, pluralism and independence, have already surpassed the intensities of the 1980s, and it seems that the writers of that generation themselves – as successful writers and as living predecessors of literary history – can no longer provide new ammunition. They can only offer words of consolation.
Editor:
Can you tell us something about the history of reportage and long-form writing in postwar China? One has the sense that war reporting flourished – and was a highly reputed genre – under the communists.
Wu Qi:
The war reports from the 1930s and 1940s onward, as well as the lengthy social surveys written by a group of journalists and writers (Xia Yan, Xiao Qian, Zou Taofen, Fan Changjiang, and so on), have been called ‘reportage literature’ in China, a concept that emphasizes its literary nature and its similarity to essays and even novels. But as this genre became more official, it also became more closed off and even hackneyed. Excessive argumentation and lyricism make some of these works indistinguishable from ideological propaganda.
The market-oriented reform of mass media in the 1980s renewed interest in this kind of writing. Terms such as ‘investigative reporting’, ‘non-fiction writing’, as well as the ‘New Journalism’ (it was still new for us) from the West had an influence on long-form reporting. There was a maturation of China’s market-oriented media, as both feature writing, which is more literary in nature, and hard-news investigations with a social impact were permitted and became popular.
In the last decade, this phase came to an end with the deepening of control over the media. As I’ve mentioned, journalists have either changed careers or endeavored to become independent writers so that they can continue writing. It is at this point, ironically, because of their active or forced separation from the media establishment, that the independence, integrity and individuality they explore in their writing seems to be most in keeping with the essentials of literariness.
Editor:
Where does one find the best long-form reportage in China today?
Wu Qi:
The number of such articles has declined dramatically compared to pre-2008, as market-based media platforms have been reduced or been forced to change their editorial strategies. If there are any left, the content they produce is Party-friendly or behind a paywall.
Authors as individuals, and syndicators of authors such as studios, etc., have had to create all sorts of different variants as a result. I’ve observed the following trends in current long-form non-fiction writing, which are mirrored in the way writers approach books: one is that many people are turning to personal, family, and life-history writing, because writing with society as a direct object lacks support and is fraught with risk. Turning to the individual is a natural and at the same time very politicized choice. The second is the academization of non-fiction writing, as more scholars, researchers, and social workers begin to get involved in the field. Or rather, journalists and writers use academic research as a bunker in order to continue writing, so you see the emergence of many field notes, research essays, and academic interviews.
The texture of this writing is very different from classic non-fiction writing and journalism, but in terms of the development of literary history, awareness of social problems, and stylistic self-consciousness, they are one and the same.
Editor:
What’s an example of the movement into historical writing as a way of approaching contemporary questions from a more oblique angle?
Wu Qi:
There’s an author we published named Yang Xiao. He wrote a book set during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It’s about how in the late 1930s, teachers and students from the top universities in the capital – Peking University, Tsinghua and Nankai – actually walked from Changsha to Yunnan in the southwest in order to get away from the onslaught of the Japanese Army. This was the so-called Long March of the Intellectuals. They set up different kinds of associations and temporary schools to support themselves, including the National Southwestern Associated University in Kunming. So Yang Xiao wrote a book about all of this. But it’s not simply a historical work. It’s also a reflection on what is happening now. He implicitly asks the question: What options does our generation have?
We have to find our own ways forward.
Editor:
One hears often of the ‘Dongbei Renaissance’ (东北文艺复兴) from Chinese writers. Many of its authors appear in this issue of Granta. What do you think accounts for the special quality of their writing? What do they capture about the country?
Wu Qi:
For me, the most fascinating thing about their writing is how they accurately capture the lost but resigned emotional structure that pervades contemporary society, whether it be for an individual, a family, or a nation – the kind of weightlessness that one can only experience in a highly functioning social machine. There is a disease of weightlessness, especially serious, in today’s China.
The reason why the northeastern, Dongbei region of China has become so representative of this literary phenomenon has to do with the fact that the region as a whole closely followed the main course of socialist development – from the rise of industry to the decline of the economy, from the highest point of collectivist ideals to the lowest point of the market economy – this violent and dramatic movement of the times was centrally staged there. In addition, the landscape and scenery of the northeast, the folk narrative tradition, and the natural sense of humor in the dialect provide rich material for literary expression.
Editor:
Is there anything comparable in the south?
Wu Qi:
It is difficult to replicate this kind of regional literary grouping elsewhere. In the past few years, there have been different organizations or individuals trying to artificially generate a new wave in the south – in places like Hangzhou and Guangzhou – but most of them have not succeeded, whether in the realm of literature or film and television.
Work of real originality will naturally refuse to be included in a collective concept, which is part of the socialist tradition. I suspect that in the south, where the market economy is relatively more prosperous, creators are more willing to preserve their individuality, even if it means marginalizing themselves.
This is much more in line with the way I perceive literature as functioning. I don’t agree with terms like the ‘Dongbei Renaissance’, which is too general and optimistic – do we have a real renaissance? But professors, and the literary class, need new material so that they can continue on with their professional lives.
Editor:
When you pick up a story by Shuang Xuetao or Ban Yu, can you tell it’s been done by a Dongbei writer?
Wu Qi:
Their work is easily recognizable because of the language. The climate stands out, and the setting – factories, heavy industry. People seem rougher in their fiction. Rough in the way they speak and the way they act. More authentic and outspoken. But they also make fun of themselves. They make fun of what we’re all facing.
In the south, we’re not that direct. If you think of people in Shanghai, their language is much more polished, and they always try to describe and trace and criticize in a more obscure way.
It is easy to feel lost in the history of socialist development, but you still need to try to find hope in life – in literature for instance. The Dongbei writers keep that aim at the heart of their stories. I think the most important thing about them, probably, is that they write about the real social environment. And people now are desperate for stories that feel like their own. We need stories that describe what the feeling of actually living here in China in the twenty-first century is like.
Editor:
How did you first become aware of the Dongbei writers?
Wu Qi:
I remember it was around 2015, during the period when traditional media was experiencing a crisis and content-control policies were being tightened. Novels from the northeast began to circulate among a small group of professional readers, literary editors, and media people, at a time when their work had not yet been seen by the marketplace, and it almost seemed like it was circulating underground.
Through word of mouth and media publicity, famous publishers and even movie stars began to notice these books, and publicly recommended them long before they reached a mass audience. Finally, literary critics began to notice them, and to study and
name them.
The next stage for some of these authors was film and television adaptations, where they are now directly involved in writing the scripts, or are responsible for teaching the screenwriters how to write – becoming ‘literary gurus’ in another industry.
Editor:
Many highly literary Chinese writers have a close relationship with filmmakers, more so than in the West. Why is this the case?
Wu Qi:
I think the reason is that we don’t have a mature enough industry, either in literature or in film. We basically lack a strong creative drive in both fields because of the constant pressures that exist for professional artists. Because of this we don’t have the kind of inputs that results in a mature stream of screenwriters.
Without a wide pool of screenwriters, filmmakers naturally turn to literary writers for material. Writers and filmmakers certainly have many things in common, but most of the time they work separately. They benefit from each other, but the mutual gains are often not enough for them to rely on each other.
Editor:
How are articles and books in China discussed today?
Wu Qi:
Ostensibly any discussion in China today relies heavily on the internet, especially social media. The influence of literary authority is diminishing, and while the official literary system still functions, it does not provide authentic criticism. The market side of things depends on publicity and marketing, as with the recent trend of live webcasting, where bloggers end up deciding which author wins the bestseller lottery. In reality, publishers are often unprofitable because of how high the discounts on books are.
The most heated social debates still happen on the internet, because it is still possible to speak relatively freely and boldly. The discussion around feminism, for example, is significant enough that it could change the way generations of people, men and women alike, view their own lives.
But I think for books, articles and literature, there is still a need to find more authentic spaces, such as private independent bookstores, especially small bookstores that exist not in overly commercialized mega-cities like Beijing and Shanghai, but in places like Chengdu, Chongqing and Wuhan. There, you are more likely to hear authentic and independent voices, and to take part in open and democratic discussions. You can also find in these places Chinese writers who are truly active in this era, who have a natural identification with and affinity for the margins, rather than being chased by anxiety and burned by success, like their other peers or predecessors. Overall, literary independence is still our unresolved subject. n
Photograph © Getty Images, Chonqing Zhongshuge bookstore, 2020
