In Chinese contemporary literary circles, Wang Gang is a writer with a unique modifier of “the Xinjiang writer” and “the Xinjiang complex”, whose novels have received positive recognition from mainstream literary and critics.
Wang Gang’s novel Ying Ge Li Shi(=English), published in 2010, is a novel that inspired the world to recognize the name of Wang Gang. This novel has received many awards. such as, “novel double crown Award for the year” of DangDai in 2004, “The book of Ten Big Book” of Chinese times in 2006 and nominated for the “Mao Dun prize for literature“ in 2008.
This paper made Wang Gang’s novel Ying Ge Li Shi the subject of analysis. This novel is a typical growth story about a boy’s self-identity. The novel is based on his experience growing up in the Xinjiang region in northwestern China during the Cultural Revolution. As “a writer born in the 1960s”, his literary epic is differentiated from the writers’ group of the new period in terms of experience and in historical memory. He used a semi-autobiographical narrative pattern using the boy’s narrative view. In the novel, he expressed his pursuit of humanity by talking about the process of spiritual growth from a boy’s point of view rather than from a huge narrative style and political point of view.
First, analyzed the growth(=initiation) of the main character, Liu Ai. As a growth novel, Ying Ge Li Shi revealed to us Liu Ai’s growth in the rational enlightenment of Wang Yajun, a “positive Guidance”. His growth, along with Wang Yajun’s guide, may be defined as the type of growth in self-discovery. Second, this paper made an analysis of the figures of intellectuals during special era, called the Cultural Revolution.
Wang Gang expressed the creative characteristics of the “1960s Born Writers’ Group”, which focuses on the growth of “person” and “life”, away from the nationalistic limitations and “huge narrative” seen in existing literary epics through Ying Ge Li Shi. In addition, by successfully creating the Guidance figure of growth lacking in the literary epic of “1960s Born Writers’ Group”, the novel presented new possibilities for growth, successfully depicting a true “role model” that deviated from the typical Chinese growth novel through traditional ideological discipline.