Subversive Self in Modern Chinese Literature: The Creation Society's Reinvention of the Japanese Shishosetsu

The Shishosetsu (I-Novel) is often characterized by Japanese literary scholars as the quintessential Japanese form of fiction in the twentieth century. Christopher Keaveney suggests that the scope of the shishosetsu's influence also extended beyond Japan and had an impact on the May Fourth literary coterie known as the Creation Society, the members of which had all been educated in Japan. Keaveney argues that the Creation Society's innovation was to see in this autobiographical form the potential for social and political critique. In the process, these young writers developed a form of fiction that simultaneously looked inward at the subjective experiences of the author and homeward to critique a China in the throes of tumultuous social upheaval. By letting their work retain both self-referentiality and articulations of social concerns, the Chinese authors were able to make the form far more political than it ever was in the hands of Japanese writers.