连阔如

Lian Kuoru is a storyteller-author about whom little biographical information survives; public sources are limited, and his dates of birth and death, native place, and education are not clearly recorded. Judging from the five works held in the collection, his writing is rooted in the tradition of Chinese pingshu storytelling and popular oral performance, drawing mainly on historical romances and classical tales while also recording observations of everyday life. His representative work Jianghu Congtan, written in an essayistic style, describes the trades, street customs, and lives of performers in the old jianghu world, combining folkloric value with readability. The Romance of the Eastern Han and its sequel turn the figures and wars of the Eastern Han into long narratives suited to oral delivery, with连贯 plots and plain language. The collection of short and medium pingshu pieces, including Jingzhong Shuoyue (with five other works), further shows his sustained effort in organizing and retelling traditional repertoire. Overall, Lian Kuoru's works bridge popular storytelling and reading, offering vivid access to old jianghu life and historical romances and exerting a certain influence in the categories of folk literature and historical reading.