The Politics of Cultural Capital: China's Quest for a Nobel Prize
In the 1980s China's politicians, writers, and academics began to raise an increasingly urgent question: why had a Chinese writer never won a Nobel prize for literature? Promoted to the level of official policy issue and national complex, Nobel anxiety generated articles, conferences, and official delegations to Sweden. Exiled writer Gao Xingjian's win in 2000 failed to satisfactorily end the matter, and the controversy surrounding the Nobel committee's choice has continued to simmer.\ Julia...
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In the 1980s China's politicians, writers, and academics began to raise an increasingly urgent question: why had a Chinese writer never won a Nobel prize for literature? Promoted to the level of official policy issue and national complex, Nobel anxiety generated articles, conferences, and official delegations to Sweden. Exiled writer Gao Xingjian's win in 2000 failed to satisfactorily end the matter, and the controversy surrounding the Nobel committee's choice has continued to simmer.Julia Lovell's comprehensive study of China's obsession spans the twentieth century and taps directly into the key themes of modern Chinese culture: national identity, international status, and the relationship between intellectuals and politics. Making use of extensive original research, including interviews with leading contemporary Chinese authors and critics, Lovell provides a comprehensive, up-to-date treatment of an issue that cuts to the heart of modern and contemporary Chinese thought and culture. It will be required reading for scholars of modern Chinese literature and culture, globalization, post-colonialism, and comparative and world literature.About the Author:Julia Lovell is research fellow in Chinese literature and history at Queen's College, Cambridge
Acknowledgments viiPrologue 1Introduction: Diagnosing the Complex 3The Nobel Prize for Literature: Philosophy and Practice 41Ideas of Authorship and the Nobel Prize in China, 1900-1976 73China's Search for a Nobel Prize in Literature, 1979-2000 107The Noble Prize, 2000 163Afterword 185Notes 187Glossary of Chinese Terms 223Bibliography 225Index 241
