Today, why should we read Xiao Hong?

Xiao Hong, one of the best writers of the 20th century, together with Zhang Ailing, Lü Bicheng and Shi Pingmei, is known as the "Four Talented Women of the Republic of China". She was praised by Lu Xun as "the most promising female writer in China today", and was praised by Liu Yazi as having "the will to lift the heavens and the talent of the world", in her short life of 31 years, in less than 10 years of creative career, she left us nearly a million hot words written in blood, such as "The Field of Life and Death", "The Legend of Hulan River" and the unfinished "Ma Bole".

This year marks the 110th anniversary of Xiao Hong's birth, and recently, the 110th anniversary of Xiao Hong's birth and the sharing meeting of the new book "Xiao Hong's Biography" were held in Beijing. Generations of famous scholars in the field of modern Chinese literature and culture studies— Zhao Yuan, Sun Yu, Yang Lianfen, Yuan Quan, Yao Dan, Guo Juan, etc.—joined us in Xiao Hong's "naïve" and illegitimate life through Xiao Hong's compassionate and spiritual words.

"The Great Biography of Xiao Hong" (People's Literature Publishing House) is a biography that deeply touches Xiao Hong's wandering and lonely soul, which truly and comprehensively restores the tragic life of Xiao Hong, the "daughter of Hulan River", with more than 500,000 words and more than 20 illustrations, teaching us to understand the "displacement" and "unwillingness" of a generation of talented women. The author of the book, the famous scholar Ji Hong is really the top scholar of Xiao Hong's research, "Xiao Hong's Biography" is the latest achievement of her 40 years of research on Xiao Hong, from a female perspective, close to the deep and broad spiritual world of another talented woman, thus presenting us with a more real, three-dimensional, and vivid image of Xiao Hong, which is also the key to the difference between "Xiao Hong's Biography" and other Xiao Hong biographies on the market.

Experts attending the meeting believe that this book clarifies many ambiguities and doubts in Xiao Hong's life, and many contents in the book, such as the investigation of Xiao Hong's background, the examination of Wang Enjia's life and mysterious disappearance, the combing and identification of relevant historical materials in Xiao Hong's research, the truth-seeking spirit of "nowhere and no history" in the whole book, the doubtful and open narrative structure, and the academic logic, all show a very high academic connotation, which is of great contribution to promoting the further development of Xiao Hong's research.

"Xiao Hong inherits the texture of Lu Xun's literary creation, especially in the writing of novels and prose, and the original life experience with vitality and authenticity, which is Xiao Hong's traditional and transcendent side of Lu Xun." In the view of Sun Yu, dean of the School of Literature of Chinese Min University and former director of the Lu Xun Museum, "Xiao Hong's existence is indeed a miracle. She did not have a strict modern education in her early days, but she connected the tradition of ancient Chinese literature and captured the secrets of existence with her sensitive life capture and aesthetic experience. In fact, she shows how a person imprisoned in the dilemma of modern life resists this despair, against this enslaved life, and she presents a complex relationship between the life and fate of the individual, so her fate exceeds the scope of ideology, and has a deep and broad extension in it, which is a very important reason why Xiao Hong is constantly talked about and constantly narrated. ”

Yao Dan, a professor at the School of Literature at Chinese Min University, described "The Great Biography of Xiao Hong" as a work of "a big woman writing another big woman", "Our general understanding will regard Xiao Hong as a weak woman, because of her life and wandering. But in terms of the power of life and her ability to create, Xiao Hong is a big, strong big woman. At the same time, "The Great Biography of Xiao Hong" puts Xiao Hong in a big historical background to write, writing out Xiao Hong in three senses, the first is national consciousness, women in national wars, the second is Xiao Hong's class consciousness, and the third is her gender consciousness."

Ji Hongzhen said that she knew Xiao Hong when she was very young because she read Lu Xun's works, which aroused interest in her, when Xiao Hong's writing environment was very harsh, but she very cleverly marked it in the form of artifacts, so reading it is a modern history of northeast China, which is a very remarkable place for Xiao Hong.

"A biography must be a comprehensive reference to all kinds of information in order to understand the particular historical situation in which it finds itself, all her struggles, runs, helplessness, and struggles, and we can understand that we must transcend a moralism and must restore it to a specific historical situation." Ji Hongzhen said.

China Education News, June 16, 2021, 11th edition

Author: Reporter of this newspaper, But Yongmei

Source: China Education News