In the 2022 New Year's Day movie, "Love Myth" leads the way. It is special in that it is completely focused on the current Shanghai and the life of shanghai citizens. In the past, the "northern narrative" has always prevailed in Chinese culture, from the stereotype of southerners in the Spring Festival Gala sketches to the prosperity of northern literary and artistic works, the "northern narrative" often consciously or unconsciously becomes a representative of Chinese culture and Chinese life, while southerners are often represented.
In modern times, the "southern narrative" includes Zhang Ailing, Shen Congwen, Wang Zengqi, Han Bangqing, etc., and in contemporary times, there are Wang Anyi, Chen Danyan, Su Tong, Bi Feiyu, Ge Fei, and so on. In addition, there is also a group of southern literature with a strong "sense of the moment", in these works, southern readers can easily see their familiar regions and lives, and see the doubts they did not ask when they were young. These experiences provide the reader with a new space to reflect our hearts and daily lives.
"Blossoms"
Author: Jin Yucheng
Publisher: Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House
Publication year: 2013-3
This is a regional novel, and the walking of the characters can find the corresponding of the "tangible" map. This is also a memory novel, the old dreams of teenagers in the sixties, the radiation is extensive, the colorful memories of fireworks everywhere, the sound and color of the dogs and horses in the nineties, is one after another flowing water, the narrative frequently alternates in two time and space, the legends are repeated, extending the "inconsistencies" and intricate situations about Shanghai, careful ridicule, aggressive comics, hidden Shanghai fashion and popularity; yesterday's omissions, or tomorrow's revelations... Even if the flowers are scattered and the god of death comes, the song is over, and the people are still not scattered.
The Age of Shuffle
Publisher: Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore
Produced by: Republic of China
Publication year: 2021-6
Shanghai was a sponge, absorbed clean, like all memories, as if it had never happened.
"The Age of Shuffle" is a classic of writer Jin Yucheng's prose, and twenty-eight essays construct a landscape image of flowers: people and scenes that come and go, the original tone of the city daily life of old Shanghai, the cold legend of the northeast farm, the brush stroke depiction of handmade utensils... When spread out, it is an old picture of Shanghai, a map of the Qingming Dynasty and the Upper River of a special era; when viewed together, it is the eternal human nature and spiritual desire of the human heart. "The Shuffle Era" is the material book of "Blossoms", the old story collection of Shanghai, and many characters and stories in "Flowers" are born from this; it is also a volume of shanghai material life history, which details the way of life of Shanghainese people and superimposes the original appearance of the past. Beneath the picture, color, smell and sound, the story undercurrents, free, gorgeous, moving details like mercury pouring down.
The details are a subtle history of the times, and "The Age of Shuffling" grasps the objects, people, space and smells, which combine the thin flow of the story and resurrect Shanghai's geographical space and urban accumulation. The characters walk among them, and the various interests of life, the inner enthusiasm, the stories that are pressed down, are invested in concrete objects, which are miniatures of secular life, showing a constant meaning.
《Zhao Qiao Village》
Author: Gu Xiang
Publisher: Republic of | Guangxi Normal University Publishing House
Publication year: 2019-7
In 2014, Gu Xiang moved from downtown Shanghai to Zhaoqiao Village, which is close to the mouth of the Yangtze River and faces Chongming Island. The spatial position shift of only twenty kilometers brings a unique psychological feeling.
As if in an RPG video game, in "Zhao Qiao Village", Gu Xiang roams between different locations in the city apartment and the village, and adventures in the sea of cars and garbage outside the village. She observed Ling unfolding in a Fibonacci spiral in the pond and witnessed a huge typhoon. In the end, it all comes together into a story of the next season and nature in the digital age, an aria of the everyday life of the city and the suburbs in the 21st century. Gu Xiang's prose and paintings are full of details, like a widescreen film, showing the destruction of contemporary life and the eternal sacredness of the universe.
"Little Flower Dan"
Author: Wang Zhanhei
Publication year: 2020-10
"The camphor tree, the Nguyen family grandmother, the QiaoXing Hair Salon, together with the whole community, have become yesterday's world."
"Little Flower Dan" is the latest collection of novels by writer Wang Zhanhei, which contains six short and medium-length works created in the past three years. This time, the writer went from the streets of life to the deeper parts of the city, from the previous generation to his peers, and also tried to walk into the secret forest of every ordinary person's heart. The relationship between people and space always carries the relationship between people and time, and running in to see and exploring is an unchanging interest and a new growth.
The green-skinned train from Jiaxing to Shanghai, the last free shuttle bus to RT-Mart, the looming Comrades Dance Corner in People's Park, and the demolition ruins, the newspaper kiosks, bridge holes and pigeon cages that have gradually been forgotten are quietly being picked up by others. The hero who walks out of the street is a derailed old satellite, wandering through the old and the new of the city landscape, and after the erosion of time, with strong happiness, build up the immortal confidence in the people and the world that grow freely.
You will also find the magical connection in the small universe of that community, the cannon shop of Boss Lai in "Empty Cannon", the qiaoxing hair salon that was once XiaoHuadan, the lame Ah Xing poked the balloon, and two disabled friends agreed to find a strange woman, and the eternal Lao Wang... They swam around, sinking and taking a big breath in the city's pools.
"The Man Who Doesn't Eat Eggs"
Author: Qian Jiannan
Publisher: CITIC Publishing Group
Producer: Generous
Publication year: 2018-1
The girl Zhou Yun grew up in a simple working family, her mother was shrewd and strong, and her father was gentle and cowardly. Since childhood, she has been regarded as the "straw" for her mother to change her fate, and has always been a well-behaved and sensible child in the eyes of her parents - admitted to key middle schools, key universities, and even pretended to be allergic to eggs in order to save a settlement fee. Until she met the maverick boy Wei Shuang, she gradually realized the true self hidden in her heart. From her teens to her thirties, she tried again and again to cross the deep river of growth, become herself who she wanted to be, and insisted on a love that was not understood, but the complicated family relationship was always her obstacle. Finally, Zhou Yun made a decision that could change his life...
《South Shop》
Author: Zhang Ji
Publication year: 2020-7
Using a clean and simple southern dialect and a southern goods store as the background, the novel outlines the pyrotechnic town life in Jiangnan from the late 1970s to the early 1990s: gourmet utensils and secular daily life, the rise and fall of the world and the light and darkness of human nature... It is the nostalgic echo of the "classical Chinese narrative" in the contemporary era. The work unfolds with the life of Qiulin, a clerk at the Nangang store in the center, and connects the character stories in the supply and marketing cooperative system. The business experience of the teacher, the warmth of the man who sells tofu, the absurd love affair between men and women, the indifferent relationship between father and son... Life and death and fate. The times are turbulent, people are softly comforted, weak but adhere to the bottom line of value, adhere to the indispensable love and dignity.
"Four Springs"
Author: Lu Qingyi
Publisher: South Seas Publishing Company
Producer: New Classic Culture
Publication year: 2019-1-1
"Four Springs" is Lu Qingyi's first written work, the text is simple and moving, and the photography is warm and healing. The 24 beautiful essays show an old couple who have been together for more than half a century, are versatile and humorous; they have shaped many old people from their hometown with distinct personalities and lively and vivid personalities, and recorded their witty and philosophical stories; and between the pages of the book, they have built a small southwest town full of fireworks, human feelings, and poetic life scenes.
Mud and Flame
Author: Black Pottery
Publisher: Guangxi Normal University Press
Subtitle: Notes from the South
Publication year: 2017-11
Mud and Flame: Notes from the South is a collection of 99 essays about the hometown of Jiangnan. In the book, Zhenjiang, Huzhou, Dubian Highway, the breath of the back house, the ancient dragon kiln, the form of the farmhouse, the Li River, a night in the mountains, the book of September, a moment of a person, the silent walk of a teenager, the poor life of the relatives at the bottom... Assembled into a dense vocabulary, it gushes out like a fountain to form the entire chapter of this book. In these chapters, all the memories of the author's hometown, the memories of his youth, and the realistic and complex atmosphere that he has encountered in his growth are all preciously contained in it.
Mud and Flame: Notes from the South reflects the dramatic changes that have taken place in Gangnam since the 1980s. Many of the material and spiritual things written in the book have been completely changed or lost, and cannot be found again. By the time, Black Potter witnessed and experienced a hometown vicissitudes. This book has also become a testimony to this vicissitudes. At the same time, black pottery also reproduces the charm of Chinese rhetoric to us with a unique "black pottery" language - intense, simple, paying attention to color and pictures, and having obvious personal recognition.
"Forest Springs in the Alley"
Author: Before the Storm in the Old Garden
Publisher: Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House
Producer: Yangtze River New Century
Publication year: 2020-5
"Forest Springs in the Alley" is a cute collection of essays with warm and humorous text, which can make people smile every 2 minutes on average. Lin Quan is a beautiful dream in the hearts of the literati, living in the market, always with delusions to escape to the beautiful place of the mountain forest spring stone. And the author's Lin Quan, in his hometown, in the streets and alleys. Whether it is beautiful or slang, she will receive everything according to the order, and she is willing to eat.
The book is divided into three series: "A Light Year", "Twilight of the Dynasty" and "The Person in Front of You", which makes people often sigh and laugh and cry.
"A Light Year" records fragments of the world' situation, and those passers-by, herbs, and clouds are like knowing that the author is carrying a clever pen and is determined to show her stories that ordinary people are unaware of. "Morning Twilight" records a distant dream-like impression that appears in the author's mind from time to time, remembering who he is, remembering the life he has experienced, and remembering why everything is so. The "person in front of you" is a deeper but may not have echoing memories, and those who have gone far, scattered, and lost are left in this book, and become the people in front of them in parallel with reality in the book.
"Private City"
Author: Chen Sicheng
Publisher: Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House
The protagonist of this book is Chaozhou in the 1980s, which is also the Teochew in the author's childhood memories. This is the author's private urban memory, but also a vivid retrospective of the old time and ancient things; it not only presents the variety and vividness of the hometown, but also writes the psychological significance of the hometown. In the author's pen, the hometown is not a nameless attachment, nor an antagonistic escape, but is placed in a good poetic place, and the hometown and people protect each other.
Through the Chinese words of the book, the reader can easily empathize and trigger infinite reverie. Everyone has a hometown that cannot go back, a childhood that has gone away, but through writing, we can rebuild our hometown and restore the inner order.
"Over there in Mengxi"
Author: Hu Sang
Publisher: Oriental Publishing House
Published: 2017-11-1
"In dialect, 'Over there in Mengxi' means far away."
"I had the best time in this land, without which I would have nothing now."
The young poet and scholar Hu Sang's first personal autobiographical essay. He used a dense, compact and crisscrossing way to depict, recall, restore and even reconstruct a hometown, a village in the hinterland of Jiangnan, a village that is disappearing. Hu Sang provides a panorama of the Jiangnan countryside in the 1980s with his extreme familiarity with things and almost cosmological ambition, but his inner fascination and attachment to illusions show a spiritual picture that the countryside does not usually have, and gazes at the village in the process of time with the poet's brushstrokes, excavating a deep inner hometown.
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