Zero-Degree Narrative

Zero-Degree Narrative is the debut collection of novellas and short stories by Wang Lübin, a writer born in the 1980s. Published by Jiangsu Literature and Art Publishing House in January 2009, it carries a preface by Fan Xiaoqing, vice chair of the Jiangsu Writers Association, and recommendations from writers including Su Tong and Chu Fujin. The author was born in Changshu, Jiangsu, in 1987, won second prize in the National New Concept Writing Competition, and was a third-year student majoring in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language at Nanjing Normal University when the book appeared; he had already published fiction in journals such as Yuhua. The collection contains nine pieces written from his high-school competition years into his early university days, spanning a wide range of subjects: "My Encounter with Nobunaga" and "June of the Tenth Year of Tensho," drawn from Japanese Sengoku history; a group of Three Kingdoms pieces under "Dynasty Warriors"; "Zero-Degree Narrative" and "Streaking," distilled from campus and everyday life; "Petals in an Iron Box" and "Love on a Desert Island," built almost entirely on imagination; and the more image-driven "Waiting for Shakyamuni" and "Hurricane." The book takes "zero-degree narrative" as its banner: the author strives not to intervene with judgment or directly reveal emotional stances, advancing the plot in a cool, even cold tone and leaving judgment to the reader. Fan Xiaoqing praised the title story as "seasoned, smooth, and understated in its narration, only revealing the answer at the very end"; other critics noted that "Streaking" is both true and absurd, and that "Love on a Desert Island" involves collisions of human nature, ethics, and ideas. The book is seen as another attempt by 1980s-born "avant-garde youth writing" beyond the campus, short in length and markedly experimental.