Despite being relatively unknown in her own country, she is a Chinese author who has been highly speculated to win the Nobel Prize in Literature this year.
In the end, Can Xue, a writer of unconventional fiction, did not win, but Jon Fosse from Norway did. However, Can Xue has become much more famous.
She had a difficult childhood during a very chaotic time in the 20th Century.
Can Xue was one of eight children and she was a teenager when the Cultural Revolution began in China. This period brought about a lot of chaos and violence for almost ten years.
When the Communist purge happened, her father, who worked as a director at a newspaper, was sent to the countryside and made to do hard manual work. Her mother, who had the same job, was also made to do it.
When her mom and dad were taken, she, her brothers and sisters, and their grandma had to take care of themselves. They were able to stay alive by eating pumpkin flowers and weeds that they collected from the mountains. At some point, they had to eat Can Xue’s father’s old clothes, including a fur coat. Her grandma got sick from working too much and not eating enough, and she later died from swelling.
Can Xue could not continue her education and only finished elementary school. She started writing again when she was almost 30 years old.
A coming together of Eastern and Western cultures.
Can Xue is a writer who was born in 1953 in Hunan province and uses the pen name Deng Xiaohua.
When she was young, her father owned many books about philosophy, particularly Marxism, and she was always around them.
But everything changed when the Cultural Revolution occurred. This was a movement started by Mao Zedong to get rid of things in society that were considered against communism, such as capitalist ideas, traditional practices, and cultural elements.
Her parents were mistreated along with many others in the country. They were publicly embarrassed, put in jail for no reason, hurt, and had their things taken away.
This means that she was not able to receive a proper education. However, she still loved to read and write. She learned English on her own and read a lot of books from the Western world while she had different types of jobs. She did many jobs like being a teacher, a tailor who worked for herself, and even an unlicensed village doctor in China.
She started writing in the 1980s and created a unique style different from other Chinese authors, but this style made her not well-known.
“Chen Xiaozhen, an editor at her publisher Hunan Wenyi, said in a report in the South China Morning Post that many readers dislike her writing style, but it also makes Can Xue stand out and be different. ”
Today, she has written many books, including novels, shorter novels, and short stories, and some of them have been translated into English.
In 2015, her book The Last Lover received a prize for being the best translated fiction. She was also nominated for the International Booker prize in the past for her book Love in the New Millennium.
She mentions famous Western writers like Kafka, Tolstoy, Shakespeare, and Dante as major inspirations for her writing.
According to an article on the China Internet Information Centre, she said her ideas come from the West, but she brings them to China to develop and grow in its deep and rich history of 5,000 years.
I don’t make art like the West or China, but I create my own unique style. I love Chinese culture very much. I came into the world in this place. I stay here. I don’t have to learn what my heart already knows.
If Can Xue had won, she would have been the second person from China to receive a Nobel Prize in Literature. The first person to win that prize was the novelist Mo Yan in 2012.
Can Xue was competing against famous and respected authors like Margaret Atwood, Haruki Murakami, and Salman Rushdie. However, she was considered one of the top contenders by the bookmakers this year.
The committee that gives out awards said that they are giving a prize to the person who has created the best piece of literature that goes in the right direction. The winner gets a lot of money.
China’s literary atmosphere refers to the overall characteristics and trends in the world of literature in China.
When someone asked Can Xue about her thoughts on China’s literary scene, she expressed dissatisfaction and negativity.
“I’ve said it before, but I don’t have any hope,” she said to a Chinese news outlet called Sixth Tone in an interview conducted in 2016. In China, people are holding on to old things and not changing or throwing them away. If you don’t follow tradition with them, then you’re seen as different and ignored.
But Can Xue, who lives in Beijing, said she will keep writing for the young people of China.
There are only a few forward-thinking Chinese people at the moment, so I have high expectations for the young generation. “They are in their twenties now,” she said.
“In 20 years, if people have spiritual problems or if material things don’t fulfill their needs, they may choose to read one of my books. ”