Chinese Literature - Li-hua Ying 2010

YAN GE, PEN NAME OF DAI YUEXING (1984— )
The Dictionary

YAN GE, PEN NAME OF DAI YUEXING (1984— ). Fiction writer. One of the post-1980s generation writers, Yan Ge began publishing stories online at www.rongshuxia.com as a high school student. She later entered Sichuan University to study comparative literature and Chinese. She has won several awards, including first prize for the New Concept Composition Competition, which made her a popular name among young readers.

From the Chinese avant-garde writers, especially Yu Hua, Su Tong, Ge Fei, and Ma Yuan, Yan Ge learned narrative techniques to create stories that border on fantasy and reality, a style that is most evident in Liangchen (Good Times), generally considered her best work. The novel consists of ten independent stories centering on one character named Gu Liangcheng, who has multiple identities: as a librarian who loves his colleague simply because they are both outsiders in a suffocating small town, a beekeeper who possesses not a single bee, a playwright whose ideal of love can only be realized on stage, and a funeral home worker who keeps his profession a secret for fear of being rejected. According to the author, the ten manifestations of unattainable love described in the novel all come down to the longing she has for her mother whose death inspired her to write the book. Among Yan Ge’s other works are Yi shou zhi (The Tale of Strange Animals), a fantastic story about animals with various human personalities, and Guan He (The Guan River), a novel set in ancient China that deals with separation, longing, betrayal, deception, and death in a sensual and languorous language. See also WOMEN.