What Lies between Chinese Writers and the Nobel Prize

As someone whose specialty is Chinese Literature, I have actually stopped even wondering, why Modern and Contemporary Chinese literature is so incredibly mediocre and bad in quality...My major is Classical Chinese Literature and I still believe that it indeed is one of the greatest world literatures. But that is in an obvious stark and shocking contrast to the Contemporary and Modern Chinese one. I have often tried to come up with an explanation for this phenomenon (i.e. why contemporary and modern Chinese literature is so mediocre and talentless) and this pondering actually gave me a broader perspective to come up with a bigger and more broadly encompassing theory about the "fall of the great Han culture" (I am deliberately not using the term 'Chinese' )...Actually exactly the realisation of the above has made me start to deeply rethink many of the cliches about China. Made me think deeply about the phenomenons, about the development (or rather more correctly said in the case of Han Chinese culture in view of it's state now, the entropy) of the so-called Chinese civilisation...I believe that literature is a great way to observe and explain the development Han Chinese culture. Literature contains a huge amount of social, political, historical, cultural information. It is a great source and gate for understanding China.

I remember few years ago a conversation with a teacher giving us a two semester lecture about modern Chinese literature. In a class break I approached him and directly asked him :"How is it possible that Chinese writers didn't write anything worthwhile during the Mao era? I understand that they were not able to publish anything and had to do so secretly, but I'm wondering how is it possible for someone to don't try to write despite that in secret...?I mean, the situation in the Soviet Union was very similar towards writers and intellectuals,but after the Perestroika there are many manuscripts which were kept hidden by writer's relatives and families and finally saw publication. Some very good works, even masterpieces. " He looked at me (with the kind of look that says " You don't understand Chinese culture") and gave me an explanation that chilled me to the bone: " They didn't write because their families would give them up." But I don't think that Mao is the reason for this complete collapse of the Chinese literary tradition. Th reasons date much further back and (in my view) stem from Chinese culture itself (hence my use of the word 'entropy). Good literary writing is a very creative process, it's a process of sharp observation and understanding, most of all it is an expression of the human condition that can touch and reach the reader in a very special way. A good writer is not someone who sees things so differently, and tels you something you don't 'know' at all, but someone who sees and sees them more sharply, more deeply and most importantly who can point directly to things that you otherwise instinctively always felt, but somehow failed to fully mentally grasp or articulate, a good writer is someone who can put his 'observations' in a language that can 'speak' to you.

Maybe one of the reasons and an explanation why Chinese writers' writing is so mediocre is their their readers' mediocrity?

A blog post by Chinese blog Fool's Mountain What Lies between Chinese Writers and the Nobel Prize got me to go back to this years-old subject of reflection of mine...