Maria Vladimirovna Semenyuk

This article investigates the problematics of Chinese “neorealism” (xin xieshizhuyi) through a case study of Wang Anyi’s novels and short stories. Wang Anyi’s fiction is both representative of neorealism and symptomatic of its problematics. Though her work is not limited by neorealist discourse, it demonstrates, to a certain extent, all basic features of neorealist literary aesthetics, such as depicting decidedly unheroic urbane mundane life, lowering the emphasize on historical influence and social controversy, and accentuating instead human existence ‘as it is’, openly discussing the topics of human biology and body, and using specific literary techniques to transmit individual feelings and perception of life.

This article discusses the development of artistic principles Wang Anyi’s novels about Shanghai. Despite the emphasis on depicting everyday city life in accurate and historically authentic detail, analysis of the art features and “points of view” within the novels reveals a double-layered narrative structure in which describing real life coexists with depicting an illusory existence. Therefore we can make certain conclusions that artistic representation of Shanghai in late novels is leaning more towards non-realistic and subjective approach. The article also emphasizes constructive significance of the concept of dream in artistic world of Wang Anyi’s novels.