Overflowing Water

Wang YuewenHunan Literature and Art Publishing House · ChinaOct 2024

Rating 4.0
Word count
164K words
Chapters
56
ISBN
9787540455996

Tags

Social Fiction Country LifeSocial ObservationCharacter PortrayalHuman NatureMemories of TimeFolk MoralityHeartwarming NarrativeRural LifeChanging TimesLu Xun Literary Prize

Summary

This book is the winner of the Mid-Length Novel Prize at the 6th Lu Xun Literary Prize. It is a collection of Wang Yuewen's novellas and short stories on rural themes, comprising six works: "Manshui," "Call It Love," "A Rural Tale," "Lost in the Mist," "Winter Beauty," and "Grandpa Gui." It portrays the rural life the author knows well, in a richly detailed style that attends closely to the delicate inner lives of its characters, offering considerable artistic merit and readability.

Editor's review

"Manshui" is Wang Yuewen's affectionate look back as he turns his pen from the officialdom of "Guohua" to the soil of his native place. Rather than a conventional novel, it is made up of a series of stories steeped in the customs and landscapes of western Hunan, like so many ink-wash paintings damp with mist. With his signature fine-lined plainstyle, Wang sketches a gallery of figures in the fictional village of Manshui—their births and deaths, loves and hatreds, all bound up with that patch of land.

From a professional standpoint, the book's value lies in revealing another side of Wang Yuewen as a novelist: shedding the sharp dissection of officialdom's rules, he turns to a plain, warm, generous style to explore the human ethics and philosophy of life in rural China. Between the lines lingers a recollection of vanishing traditions, a attachment to the natural countryside, and a concern for the fate of villages in the course of modernization. The book has no breathtaking plot conflicts, yet through its finely wrought depiction of daily life it gives those seemingly ordinary farmers, craftsmen, and village elders a moving vitality.

As an editor, I believe the value of reading "Manshui" lies not only in its literary quality but in the perspective it offers on rural China—not an exotic display of folkways, but a cultural understanding that reaches into the grain of things. Wang Yuewen transforms his deep knowledge of western Hunan culture into restrained yet tension-filled narrative, letting readers find true flavor in the plain and deep meaning in the ordinary. This is a book to read slowly and quietly, to feel the profound respect for land and tradition behind the words.

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Reading tips

  1. Reading in chapter order is recommended, though each story stands relatively independent and may be read according to interest
  2. Readers may wish to slow down and savor the descriptions of landscape, people, and custom
  3. Familiarity with the regional culture of western Hunan can deepen one's sense of the work's background

About the publisher

Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House China · Founded in 1985

Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House is a publisher known for its literary titles, with a catalogue spanning foreign literature, world classics, classical Chinese literature, essays and miscellaneous writings, and mystery and detective fiction. Judging from the more than 1,100 books in the database, the press publishes foreign classics such as Crime and Punishment, Snow Country, The Complete Sherlock Holmes and Letter from an Unknown Woman, as well as Chinese classical and modern literary works including Lu Xun's Wandering and A Madman's Diary and Wu Jingzi's The Scholars. In terms of translators and authors, translations by Cao Guowei and Tan Jinghua appear in its foreign literature titles, and the authors involved include Dostoevsky, Kawabata Yasunari, Conan Doyle and Zweig. Its publishing character lies in introducing Chinese and foreign literary classics side by side, balancing popular and serious works and attending to both readability and literary value. Public information is limited; the above is a brief overview based solely on the books in the database.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 漫水
  3. 一
  4. 二
  5. 三
  6. 四
  7. 五
  8. 六
  9. 七
  10. 八
  11. 九
  12. 我的堂兄
  13. 一
  14. 二
  15. 三
  16. 四
  17. 五
  18. 六
  19. 七
  20. 八
  21. 九
  22. 十
  23. 十一
  24. 十二
  25. 十三
  26. 十四
  27. 十五
  28. 十六
  29. 十七
  30. 十八
  31. 十九
  32. 也算爱情
  33. 雾失故园
  34. 桂爷
  35. 一
  36. 二
  37. 三
  38. 四
  39. 五
  40. 六
  41. 七
  42. 八
  43. 九
  44. 十
  45. 乡村典故
  46. 一
  47. 二
  48. 三
  49. 四
  50. 五
  51. 六
  52. 七
  53. 八
  54. 九
  55. 十
  56. 冬日美丽

FAQ

Is "Manshui" very different in style from Wang Yuewen's earlier officialdom novels? Markedly so. "Manshui" departs entirely from officialdom narrative for rural subjects, and its style shifts from sharp satire to a calm depth, showing the author's range.
Is this book a novel or a collection of short stories? "Manshui" consists of several independently complete yet internally connected short stories that together build the literary geography of Manshui; it may be regarded as an organic collection of short fiction.
Is "Manshui" in the book a real place name? "Manshui" is a fictional village in western Hunan created by Wang Yuewen, but it distills the typical features of villages in western Hunan and indeed in China, making it a highly representative literary image.

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About the author

Wang Yuewen Author · Chinese · 1962

Wang Yuewen, born in October 1962 in Xupu, Hunan, is a contemporary writer who serves as chairman of the Hunan Writers Association and a member of the Presidium of the China Writers Association. He began his literary career in 1989 and rose to fame with the novel Guohua (Traditional Chinese Painting), followed by works such as Meici Gushi, Zhaoxi Zhijian, Da Qing Xiangguo, Canghuang, The First Year of Aili, and Jiashan. His writing often focuses on social reality and the ecology of officialdom, with delicate prose and solid character portrayal, and has influenced both documentary literature and social fiction. His novella Manshui won the 6th Lu Xun Literary Prize, and his essays appear in anthologies such as 50 Essays of the Year (2022), Volume II. Four of his works are included in this collection.