Speech at Symposium for Human Realm

Liu Jiming  October 15, 2016)

I have attended symposia on my own work more than once before, but rarely have I witnessed such frank and open exchange and collision of different views as today. This is what a literary discussion should be — yet for many years, such occasions have been rare indeed. Often the topics publicly discussed are hollow and beside the point, while fundamental questions are deliberately sidestepped. The atmosphere today, then, feels long overdue.

In the Afterword I mentioned that the final completion of The Human Realm took nearly twenty years and is inseparable from my own personal experience — it is first and foremost the spiritual history of growth of one person from youth to middle age. When I say in the Afterword that this work is important to me, that is the sense in which I mean it. Some say this is a novel about the construction of the new countryside; others say it is a novel about the "rural reconstruction" movement; and various interpretations have been offered from these angles. But for me, the narrative impulse that determined the entire work's tone and character was the desire to use the personal fate and growth of Ma La to refract the enormous transformations, crises, and hopes that this country has experienced over more than thirty years. Beyond this, over the long twenty-year process of writing, the reason I repeatedly stopped and put the work aside — even nearly gave it up entirely — was, apart from the circumstances of my personal life, primarily certain "hard problems" I had not encountered in earlier writing: questions of how to address real problems and historical experience through literary means, and what Chen Fumin called the "artistic risks" — Li Yunlei expressed the same idea when he used the word "transgression." As everyone knows, the mainstream literary system built since the 1980s has formed a fairly complete set of aesthetic and value norms, which in the minds of many writers have become a kind of "collective unconscious." One is made acutely aware of their pressure at every moment — a pressure that sometimes presents itself in the guise of temptation, and for many has become an unquestionable authority and a standard that must be followed. As Brother Yuhai just said: many critics evaluate writers and works in the manner of marking school essays, and any heterogeneous kind of writing can easily be dismissed and marginalized, dissolved into nothingness. If you do not want to be dismissed and dissolved, you must make concessions, even capitulate — otherwise you will bear that invisible and visible pressure, even risk. This is also why I have gradually grown weary of the literary scene. The truth is, I am not the steadfast person in spirit that some friends have suggested; I am often contradictory, hesitant, pessimistic. Like Ma La in the novel — his thinking and spirit are also full of contradiction throughout, including his reflections on death — all of this is in fact an expression of my own psychological state. From the late 1990s to the present day, my relationship with the mainstream literary world and with prevailing literary tastes has been one of ambivalent attraction and mutual rejection. I have grown accustomed to this state. The reason I persisted in finishing The Human Realm was largely that I wanted to bring a certain reckoning and accounting to myself and to the era I have lived through — to bid farewell through this work to years that have passed.

What is gratifying is that here today, everyone has analyzed The Human Realm from different angles — from within literature and from without, from history and from the present — and put forward many valuable insights, whose significance extends beyond the assessment of a single work. I find myself suddenly feeling that my writing perhaps should not end here after all: first, because the story of The Human Realm has not truly ended; and second, because I still hold out hope for this world.

(Proceedings of the 65th Young Arts Forum of the China National Academy of Arts, October 15, 2016)

Preface to the English Edition of 

The Human Realm

— Liu Jiming, February 10, 2026

It has been exactly ten years since the publication of The Human Realm. In my original postscript, I reflected on its twenty-year gestation—a journey starting in the mid-1990s and concluding in 2015, accompanying me from my youth to the present. In the summer of 2015, I stayed in Changshengzhuang, a mountain village retreat for the Wansongpu College of Letters. There, amidst orchards and reservoirs, I rediscovered a long-lost earthy vitality; at night, under the vast starlit sky, I found a profound tranquility far removed from the clamor of the world. Upon returning to Wuhan, I completed the final revisions, restructuring the novel into its parallel paths for Ma La and Murong Qiu.

Upon its release in 2016, the renowned writer Zhang Wei noted: “The Human Realm allows us to rediscover the simplicity and dignity that contemporary literature once possessed amidst today's shallow clamor”. Later that year, critics at a Beijing symposium recognized the novel’s "stubborn growth" within a climate suppressed by capitalist production relations. Scholar Chen Fumin remarked that without such voices, this historical period would be a disgrace, linking the work to the inner spirit of the socialist movement. It was here that the critic Li Yunlei first proposed the concept of "New Socialist Literature," viewing The Human Realm as a profound exploration of "where China is headed".

"In a letter to me, Mr. Han Shaogong wrote: 'An unprecedented reconstruction of utopia, a comprehensive reckoning and quest for answers. In this sense, such writing is itself a momentous act of spiritual merit that deeply moved me. The topicality of this book is likely to be enduring, broad, and profound—far exceeding all our expectations.'"

Despite this acclaim and several awards, the mainstream literary establishment’s reaction remained lukewarm—a reflection of the long-standing marginalization of socialist themes. At the time, I viewed this novel as the "conclusion" of my literary career. However, at the urging of scholars who saw my characters as being in an "unfinished state," I eventually produced Black and White—a novel that many consider the culmination of the themes started here.

Now, one year after the English release of Black and White, The Human Realm is finally making its debut in the English-speaking world. I am deeply gratified and wish to thank Mr. Gang Chen and Vero Publishing for their unwavering support in bringing my work to a global audience.

AFTERWORD

--Liu Jiming, March 28, 2016, Yujishan, Wuchang

The writing of Human境 (Renjing) can be traced back as early as 1995 and 1996. At that time, I'd just published Underwater Village and Going to Huang Village in Shanghai Literature. Harvest, Zhongshan, People's Literature, and other journals also successively published some of my novellas and short stories, attracting considerable literary attention. Before long, I began conceiving a novel. I planned to use the village where I was born and grew up as background, writing about a village called "Longsang" from the 1950s straight through to the late 1990s. I named this novel The Book of Longsang because I really liked that song Walking on Longsang sung by Zhang Mingmin: "I walk across Longsang / Longsang in autumn colors / Golden leaves on branches / Wind comes rustling..." It made me seem to see the familiar hometown scenery of childhood. Additionally, during that period, I was reading a British novel The Book of the Scots—a work full of poetry and local color. Naming my work, The Book of Longsang, also meant paying tribute to this great British novel.

But after writing just over 100,000 characters, the novel stopped. The direct reason causing the writing interruption was my wife Sun Yuan's illness. We'd been married less than a year. Her illness and eventual death made me seem to fall from heaven into purgatory. My entire person changed from inside out in completely unexpected ways. Over a year later, when I tried to restart the novel's writing, I faced what seemed scattered rubble and ruins—completely unable to find the feeling. The indirect reason related to that time's literary environment. The avant-garde faction that flourished in the late 1980s, though gradually declining, was replaced by "New Realism" and "New Generation" (or "Late Generation") creative trends—copying chicken feathers on the ground-like daily trivialities and individualistic lifestyles became the 1990s' writing fashion. They were actually avant-garde variants. Critic Li Jiefu believed "cultural concern fiction" was "in the name of avant-garde, practicing classicism"—perhaps revealing the fundamental divergence between my writing and avant-garde plus new generation writing, from "superficially compatible but spiritually different" to "parting ways." But I hadn't expected to so quickly move from "superficially compatible but spiritually different" with "avant-garde" and the 1990s writing trend to "parting ways." The watershed was The Book of Longsang. I say this because—whether in narrative style or content—this novel differed greatly not only from that period's literary fashion but also from my own writing style already regarded as established by readers and critics. In other words, this was both a challenge to established literary order and a challenge to myself. This required both sufficient courage and sufficient ability. Regrettably, I possessed neither force at that time. After all, I was only in my early thirties—like a soldier rushing into battle without fully recognizing the campaign's arduousness. Failure was destined. Of course, such failure wasn't necessarily bad. Like a woman giving birth—without going through full-term pregnancy, premature babies are often unhealthy, even possessing diseases or congenital disabilities.

The second attempt began in 2002. This conception differed greatly from the first attempt. But I'd just written less than 100,000 characters when Hubei Writers Association arranged for me to work temporarily at the Three Gorges. During the temporary assignment, I threw myself into interviewing and writing the reportage Dam of Dreams, followed by the novel Rivers and Lakes, plus a series of novellas and short stories later called "bottom-layer narratives" by critics. Living environment and writing goals repeatedly diverging made my mood and interests continuously change. Midway several times, including during 2011 living in New Zealand, I'd considered continuing this novel. But trying several times, I couldn't continue. Until 2014, when Tianxia magazine, published less than two years, ceased publication due to circumstances. My body and mind obtained tremendous liberation. Finally, I could calm down to consider next steps in writing. Thus, I obtained another opportunity to continue this repeatedly shelved novel. Unexpectedly, when I picked up the pen again this time, it went much more smoothly than anticipated. After so many years passed, whether my own thoughts, China's reality, or literature—all underwent many thought-provoking changes. When I restarted writing, having new life resources and intellectual momentum, I could escape original conception limitations. Therefore, you could say I was writing an entirely new novel.

Despite this, it still maintained a brother-like blood relationship with that unfinished work. Though appearances and expressions differed, the same blood flowed through. For instance, several main characters from The Book of Longsang survived in Renjing—only "Ma Chuan" became "Ma La," "Zhu Laohei" became "Guo Dawan," "Longsang" also became "Shenhuangzhou." The Book of Longsang only planned writing one village. Renjing divided into upper and lower parts—the upper part writing Ma La's release from prison, returning to Shenhuangzhou to start anew; the lower part with Murong Qiu as protagonist writing urban life at universities and intellectual circles. Including new-type farmers' cooperatives, Chufeng Group pollution incidents, Yangtze Electromechanical Factory restructuring and other plots—these accompanying new contradictions and problems appearing in Chinese society over ten-plus years obviously couldn't have appeared ten or twenty-plus years ago. From this meaning, author and contemporary China's continuously changing reality together co-nurtured this work.

My writing began in the mid-1980s—precisely when thought liberation and New Era literature flourished. From the start I threw myself in wholeheartedly with tremendous enthusiasm. I once described this excited, stirring mood in an essay titled My Age of Passion. Over thirty years passed. China's society and literature underwent earth-shaking changes. I also moved from ignorant youth into middle age full of vicissitudes. Literature, after experiencing numerous dazzling new terms and new trends' washing, seemed to have returned to the initial starting point. Any flashy, confusing outer garments couldn't hide literature's internal pallor and crisis. At the New Era's beginning, we'd been infatuated with Nietzsche's famous saying "revalue all values." Today's Chinese society and its literature seem to again face a new round of departure and new round of release.

The Master said by the river: "What passes is just like this, never ceasing day or night." Like a person, every work has its own destiny. For writers, every work is his child, permeated with his perceptions and reflections on this world—praise and criticism, lingering attachment and farewell. As a novel accompanying me from youth to today on such a long journey, even more so.

The moment I completed Renjing, a strong feeling surged in my heart: I'd written the most important work of my life.

The Author

March 28, 2016, Yujishan, Wuchang

Liu Jiming Interview | One Must Struggle for Truth

Interviewer: The Progressive Culture Interview Team Date of Interview: September 25, 2020 Published in: Renjing Net, November 16, 2025

Progressive Culture: Hello, Teacher Liu! Since your full-length novel The Human Realm was published, it has been selected for the 2016 Harvest Full-Length Novel Rankings, for the list of "Forty Important Full-Length Novels of the Forty Years of Reform and Opening-Up," and for nomination for the Lu Yao Literary Prize. Many critics regard this novel as a summative work in your creative output, comparing it to literary classics such as Midnight, A History of Entrepreneurship, A Bright Sunny Sky, and An Ordinary World, and considering it a pioneering work of "new socialist literature." Yet the mainstream literary world seems to have paid the work rather little attention. How do you see this phenomenon?

Liu Jiming: Once a work is published, it is entirely normal for some people to praise it and others to criticize it, for some to like it and others not, for some to pay it attention and others not. As you say, there are indeed critics who have placed The Human Realm alongside left-wing and socialist literary classics such as Midnight, A History of Entrepreneurship, and A Bright Sunny Sky for discussion — but for nearly forty years now, these very classics have been consistently disparaged and even stigmatized by China's mainstream literary world. If any writer or work is placed within that lineage, it brings not honor but condemnation.

Progressive Culture: The distinguished critic Mr. Li Jingze has called you a "formidable thinker" and on more than one occasion spoken of the "power of thought" in your work — while at the same time observing that "it is precisely this power that has carried him beyond the boundaries of literature." How do you understand that remark?

Liu Jiming: Li Jingze has genuine literary taste and outstanding literary discernment. Several novellas I published in People's Literature in the mid-to-late 1990s were edited and published through his hands. As an editor, his eye and his sensibility are inclusive; as a critic, he seems to have a particular affinity for the avant-garde and for "pure literature." Not long ago, in the preface he wrote for the young critic Li Yunlei's collection How to Tell New Chinese Stories, he wrote: "Yunlei's kingdom was from the very beginning well-ordered and clear in its aims, encompassing a series of interconnected elements: identification with China's historical path since the modern era, identification with the Chinese revolution and socialism, identification with the tradition of China's new literature and its left-wing tradition; correspondingly, he holds a stance of critical reflection toward the mainstream literary conceptions that have prevailed since the 1980s; he firmly believes in the responsibility that literature bears toward the modern nation-state, and regards this as literature's glory…" — offering Li Yunlei's critical practice a thorough and affirmative endorsement. He also spoke of positive insights gained from studying Mao Zedong's "Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art." This shows that Li Jingze's literary views are not fixed and unchanging, but are in a process of continuous development and renewal.

In my view, the boundaries drawn by the advocates of "pure literature" may be precisely the point of departure for "a different kind of literature." In this sense, literature does not possess any uniform boundary, nor is there any meaningful inside or outside — even if such distinctions exist, they exist only within an individual's inner life or consciousness. Take Tolstoy and Nabokov: who can say with any clarity what the literary boundaries in either of their minds looked like?

Progressive Culture: In 2017, you publicly reported Chen Yingsong — then Vice Chairman of the Hubei Provincial Writers' Association and Director of its Literary Institute — through online channels, whereupon he sued you for defamation; Fang Fang, then Chairman of the Hubei Provincial Writers' Association, firmly backed Chen Yingsong, and you in turn sued her for defamation. More than two years have passed — what became of these two lawsuits? Can you give our readers an account of the whole sequence of events?

Liu Jiming: I have already given a detailed account of the origin of this matter in my essay "Why I Reported Chen Yingsong — With a Rebuttal of Fang Fang," and will not repeat it here.

In the defamation case between Chen Yingsong and me, the court ruled against me on the grounds that "Liu Jiming, without having the relevant authorities investigate, verify, and make a legal determination, chose to publicly report Chen Yingsong to society via the internet, and thus exercised his rights in a manifestly improper manner." This judgment is thoroughly absurd and cannot stand on either the facts or the law: if the relevant authorities had already "investigated, verified, and made a legal determination," I would not have needed to make a public report in the first place. It was precisely because the relevant authorities had failed to act on my reports and those of others that I had no choice but to "publicly report Chen Yingsong via the internet" — a right granted to every citizen by the Constitution. In fact, many corruption cases have been investigated and handled by the relevant authorities precisely because they were first publicly reported online.

As for the judgment in my defamation suit against Fang Fang, it is even more absurd. Fang Fang repeatedly posted on Weibo and WeChat to whitewash Chen Yingsong, to confuse right and wrong, and to slander and defame me — yet at the hearing she actually argued that her posts were not directed at any "specific individual." Still more astonishing: in the face of such incontrovertible facts of rights violation, the court of first instance, the court of second instance, and even the Provincial High Court all accepted Fang Fang's sophistry.

Progressive Culture: It has been reported online that the Hubei Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission issued you a "Party warning," while handing down decisions of "criticism and education" and "admonishment through conversation" in Chen Yingsong's case — though Chen Yingsong denied receiving any Party disciplinary treatment whatsoever. What is the situation here?

Liu Jiming: On April 1, 2019, a group of officials from the discipline inspection team attached to the Publicity Department of the Provincial Party Committee, stationed under the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission, convened in the second-floor conference room of the Provincial Writers' Association and announced two decisions. First, citing "violation of organizational principles and improper exercise of the right to report," they issued me a "Party warning." I immediately raised an objection and stated that I was reserving the right to appeal to the higher discipline inspection authorities. Second, they informed me of the decision regarding Chen Yingsong's case. The discipline inspection authorities had verified through investigation that Chen Yingsong did indeed have disciplinary violations — but citing reasons including the non-cooperation of certain female students with the investigation and the death from illness of one of those involved, a woman named Liu Mouyang, the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission hastily closed the case while numerous questions surrounding Chen Yingsong's conduct remained unresolved, handing down the decision of "criticism and education, admonishment through conversation." In response to this decision — which so obviously shielded Chen Yingsong — one online commenter wrote: "A 'Party warning' for the person who reported the problem, 'criticism and education' for the person with the problem — did the Hubei Discipline Inspection Commission take the wrong medicine?" That says everything about how absurd it was.

Afterward, Chen Yingsong spread word far and wide of my punishment. When online sources disclosed the fact that he too had received Party disciplinary treatment, he not only flatly denied it but threatened to sue the websites that had published the relevant articles and information, fabricated a lengthy piece furiously attacking and slandering me — spreading rumors that I suffered from depression, had attempted to "jump off a building," and had "sincerely admitted my mistakes on multiple occasions," and so on. Meanwhile, following the slashing of all four tires on my car, someone painted graffiti on it; I even received death threats. Earlier, a middle school teacher in Qianjiang, Hubei, had had his front door hacked seven times in the middle of the night for forwarding my report letter and exposing Chen Yingsong, and had been subjected to suppression by local propaganda department officials.

What is beyond comprehension is that the relevant authorities not only turned a blind eye to this gangster-style retaliation, but having issued their decisions regarding both Chen Yingsong and me, they long delayed proceeding with the "criticism and admonishment" of Chen Yingsong according to proper organizational procedure. When I questioned the official in charge of the case, the response was evasive — even furious. The hidden reasons require no elaboration.

Progressive Culture: Whether by real name or anonymously, reporting wrongdoing has always been a high-risk act; many people have faced savage retaliation, have been "disappeared," have been involuntarily psychiatrized, have been made to appear to have "jumped off buildings," and some have paid with their lives. As a well-known writer, you must have borne greater psychological pressure than ordinary people in facing this backlash, and your personal rights and reputation have been damaged. Did you anticipate these consequences at the outset? Did you ever consider compromising or backing down?

Liu Jiming: Not long ago the media reported that in Longquan, Zhejiang, several local residents who had reported a senior official for suspected corruption found that not only was the official not investigated — the people who had made the report were subjected to a "counter-investigation" by the public security authorities. In Xinhuang County, Hunan, a teacher named Deng Shiping, who had resisted and exposed the corruption of his school's principal, was silenced at the instigation of the principal's nephew, buried under the track of the school sports ground, while word was spread that Deng Shiping had absconded with funds; it was sixteen years before his remains were discovered. Examples of this kind are beyond counting. By comparison, my own experience has not been worse than theirs — at least, to date, I have not been "silenced." These more than two years of experience have indeed given me a vivid sense of how ferocious and unbridled the retaliators can be. But the slanders of those retaliators, the court's absurd judgments, and the unjust treatment I received from the relevant authorities have not caused me to compromise — they have, on the contrary, strengthened my courage to fight to the end.

Progressive Culture: The online scholar She Shui Nongfu, in his essay "There Is a Kind of Honor Called 'Slander,'" wrote: "The reason Liu Jiming was willing to take such great risks is not that he was without any psychological preparation, but that a firm and unwavering conviction in his heart drove him to courageously fight against ugliness and injustice, even at the cost of his own reputation and material interests. … This is neither an isolated incident, nor an accidental occurrence out of nothing. It profoundly reveals the fracture of contemporary Chinese society, the fracture of the intellectual class — the question of which 'hide' the intellectual will attach himself to: whether to attach himself to the hide of the vested-interest class and become a spineless cynic with no autonomous soul, or to attach himself to the hide of the broad masses of the people and work for the interests of the great majority." As the person directly involved, how do you see this question?

Liu Jiming: What She Shui Nongfu says is only half right. In the minds of these people, what "principles" are there? There is only interest. It is precisely for this reason that Chen Yingsong joined forces with Fang Fang: on one hand they turned black into white, slandering my report as "defamation and framing" and a "breach of the basic floor of human conduct"; on the other hand they instigated the writing of anonymous letters to the Provincial Discipline Inspection Commission to frame and incriminate me. All the evidence points to an intricately tangled chain of interests behind this incident — reaching into the judiciary, the discipline inspection apparatus, and the literary world, with quite possibly organized criminal elements as well. In order to fully investigate Chen Yingsong's suspected disciplinary and legal violations and the protective umbrella behind him, I have already filed appeals and charges with the Central Discipline Inspection Commission and other authorities. At the same time, given the erroneous judgments and rulings by the courts in my defamation suit against Fang Fang, I will also be seeking a protest to the Hubei Provincial People's Procuratorate. This is not merely about so-called "rights defense" — I simply want to see to what degree public power has been debased by that crowd of time-servers and double-dealers.

Progressive Culture: Last year, your essay collection Defense and Outcry was published in Taiwan. The distinguished scholar Mr. Kong Qingdong, in his preface "A Cry from Conscience — Preface to Liu Jiming's Defense and Outcry," wrote: "From Lu Xun and Guo Moruo, to Ding Ling and Yao Xueyin, to Wei Wei, Hao Ran, and Chen Yingzhen… each has shouldered a gate of darkness to rebuild the conscience of the Chinese people. … These representative figures of a century's conscience have been drenched in filth one by one, suffering the fate of Bruno and Galileo. And the baseness of the methods and the absurdity of the logic used to slander and frame them are themselves sufficient evidence that the era's conscience is once again tending toward extinction. That Liu Jiming has expanded himself from a novelist of 'cultural concern' into a crier of 'awakening conscience' is nothing more than the cry of the cuckoo — seeing clearly and then crying out in a vain effort to hold back the flood." Do you seek, through your writing about these "representative figures of a century's conscience," to express your own inner indignation?

Liu Jiming: "Essays are written for the times, songs and poems are composed for events" [note: a famous dictum attributed to Bai Juyi, the Tang dynasty poet] — using another's wine cup to pour out the frustrations in one's own heart is as true today as it was in ancient times. Through reflection on these historical figures, I conducted a systematic survey of my own intellectual lineage, and gained from it precious illumination. Mr. Zhang Chengzhi once said: "In today's global climate of pointing at deer and calling them horses [note: a classical idiom for deliberate inversion of truth], the person who dares to say 'I am not' is the truly courageous one." I cannot claim to be "truly courageous" — but though I cannot reach that height, I can at least aspire toward it.

Progressive Culture: From the "cultural concern fiction" of the mid-1990s, to the grassroots literature movement that arose in the early new century, from the self-funded founding of the journal Tianxia some years back, to your recent struggle against the forces of corruption in the literary world — you have consistently adopted the posture of a "dissident," intervening in and critiquing reality, and have emphasized that this critique stands on the position of the great majority of the people rather than the position of a small minority of elites. Some have therefore praised you as a genuine "people's intellectual," and readers have left comments beneath your public account essays such as: "You are a banner of contemporary Chinese writers; you are a hero of this era who, in the face of power, never forsakes conscience or vocation!" and "You have sounded the battle cry against all evil forces — every Chinese person of conscience and justice is your staunch support!" and "Support Teacher Liu! You are the conscience of the intellectual class! You are a courageous warrior in pursuit of justice and light!" Yet compared to the support you receive from ordinary readers and online communities, you appear quite isolated within the literary world — as She Shui Nongfu's essay noted, quite a few people in literary circles have developed misunderstandings of and even hostility toward you. What are your feelings about this?

Liu Jiming: In today's China, after a portion of the intellectual elite has become one corner of the "iron triangle of interests," the brazenness and arrogance with which they manipulate political, economic, and cultural resources has reached its apex. The literary world is no different. The attitude of "judge only by factional loyalty, ask nothing of right and wrong" is displayed in some people to perfection. The "baseline" they constantly invoke is nothing but a cover for mutual protection, mutual corruption, and collusion within their "social circle." Facts have proven that those who have truly breached the so-called "baseline of human conduct" are precisely they themselves. To construct moral legitimacy for themselves, they have even deliberately confused the essential distinction between reporting wrongdoing and informing on people [note: in Chinese political culture, 举报 — reporting to authorities — is a civic right; 告密 — informing — is associated with betrayal], manufacturing the absurd proposition that "the basic baseline of human conduct is neither to report nor to inform." Yet even in Western countries, reporting all illegal and disciplinary violations is an obligation every citizen is expected to fulfill, backed by strict whistleblower protection legislation. In their world, however, the person who reports suspected illegality is the "villain," while the person guilty of the illegality is the "good person" they work strenuously to shield. This inversion of good and evil, this confusion of right and wrong, this total disregard for social justice — it truly leaves one speechless. It is plain to see how gravely the elite interest bloc has damaged the human spirit and the entire social organism, across the political, economic, legal, cultural, and moral dimensions. It is therefore not at all surprising that I face attack and exclusion from certain people within the institutionalized literary circle. But through this affair, I have seen through the true nature of certain toadies and hypocrites — I was never the same kind of person as them in the first place, and parting ways with them may not be a bad thing at all.

Progressive Culture: The early "cultural concern fiction" of your career frequently features the image of a singular, nonconforming literatus-intellectual who is at odds with reality — such as Huang Mao in Going to Huang Village and Ouyang Yuqiu in Underwater Village. Later you created in Singing Out Loud the folk singer Qian Gaoliang, who, finding no recourse for his case against an unscrupulous boss, climbs the courthouse building and belts out a "three-drum jump" [note: a traditional folk art form]. In the novella Enlightenment you told the story of the renowned writer Qu Boan's fall from an intellectual who "suffers on behalf of the people" to a boss of the "power-and-capital interest group" — after being reported by the indigenous residents of Chunshu Island, Qu Boan directs the underworld to make them disappear, and when taken to court, effortlessly uses his connections to have the case withdrawn. We notice that these characters and stories bear a striking resemblance to what you yourself have experienced in recent years. This may be coincidence — but it looks more like a kind of prophecy. You have also written articles publicly supporting workers' rights movements and the solidarity activities of progressive young students. Does this indicate that you have moved from being a writer who "sits and talks of principle" to an "intellectual of action" who actively engages in social practice? And after going through the "reporting incident," what has been your greatest feeling?

Liu Jiming: If at the very beginning of the reporting incident I still had doubts about whether I had been wrong, those doubts have vanished entirely after more than two years of savage retaliation. I am now certain that my actions were not only right, but necessary. Faced with evil and ugliness, I am unable to maintain silence as most people do. As Tolstoy wrote in his essay "I Cannot Be Silent": "I wish that my exposure of these people might, as I hope, lead by some means or other to my being driven out of the circle in which I now live, and in which I cannot help feeling myself a participant in the crimes committed around me." Not long ago I read on Jiliu Net [note: a left-wing website] an essay discussing the May Fourth movement, in which the author wrote: "Who today are the heroic figures capable of summoning the masses' fighting spirit? How can ordinary people display their own heroism? Who are the true heroes, and who merely play at heroism? The exposers and accusers in the anti-sexual-harassment movement are true heroes — they do not hesitate to reveal that they have been sexually harassed or assaulted by those in superior positions, exposing ugliness to public opinion and seeking justice. The hackers who dig out important information that the ruling class deliberately conceals are true heroes — Julian Assange of WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden, Wikipedia. The star witnesses to the crimes of the ruling class are true heroes — Edward Snowden, John Perkins… In short, any exposure of the abuse and degradation visited by those in superior positions upon those below them is a heroic act. The ancients said: the Confucian scholar subverts law through the written word; the knight-errant violates prohibition through the sword. The knight-errant has exited the stage of history along with the passing of the age of cold weapons, but the scholar-gentleman has found, with the development of the internet, a vast arena for meaningful action. Exposing the lies and abominations of interest groups — this is not a rarified cultural movement, but a social movement in which all commoners can participate. All members and accomplices of interest groups are targets of public censure. Exposing scandal, witnessing scandal, analyzing its roots — this is the first step of social progress, and the intellectuals who have awakened today can only begin from this first step…" Through what appeared to be a chance occurrence, I made a complete break with the literary "circle" that is accelerating in its corruption and degradation. Thinking that I will from now on be free of the all-pervasive temptations and entanglements of fame and profit that come with being inside the institutional system — free to write and live freely — I feel a sense of liberation. This feeling of mine is obviously incomprehensible to those who spend their days scrambling for fame and profit within the system. I said it, I did it, I saved my own soul. As for success or failure, or what others may think — that is no longer something I can control. Justice may be late in arriving, but it cannot be absent forever.

Progressive Culture: In the contemporary Chinese literary world, you are considered one of the few left-wing writers. Some have labeled you "ultra-left." Do you accept this characterization?

Liu Jiming: In the Western context, "ultra-left" and "ultra-right" are both neutral designations with equal political standing. But in today's China, it is a stigmatizing term used by right-wing public intellectuals against left-wing people. In truth, under the current political ecology of China, dividing different groups by "left" and "right" can barely express anyone's real values. Speaking for myself: if two years ago I might still have been willing to accept labels such as "left-wing" or "leftist," this struggle has made me a Marxist. In saying this, I expect some fool will again accuse me of "self-appointment" — even though in today's Chinese public discourse, "Marxism," like "leftist," is not a mark of honor but something regarded as heretical. For me, this is actually an unexpected gain. The Marxism I speak of is neither Western Marxism, nor the kind of Bernsteinism that operates under the banner of Marxism in disguised form — it is what Samir Amin called "Marxism as struggle." In my view, the lines of the Internationale — "Let thought burst the prison bars; one must struggle for truth" [note: from the Chinese version of the Internationale] — remain the goal for which all true Marxists strive.

In this sense, I owe thanks to Fang Fang, Chen Yingsong, and the interest group they represent. Their savage retaliation has not brought me down — it has, on the contrary, propelled me onto a road of "inheriting justice." As I wrote in my essay "The Seventy-Year-Old Educated Youth, or 'The People's Rhetoric' — Reading Notes on Zhang Chengzhi": "As a person of the 'generation born in the 1960s,' one generation after Zhang Chengzhi, I have not contracted the common ailment visible in many of my contemporaries — that lightness, cowardice, and worldliness. Put another way, I still have the capacity to be moved, to be angered, and to act. This too might be regarded as a gift bequeathed to me by 'the great 1960s.'"

Progressive Culture: After completing your full-length novel The Human Realm, you reportedly said you intended to put down your pen for good. Do you still feel that way?

Liu Jiming: I did have that feeling. I felt I had already written the most important work of my life, and that further writing would have no particular meaning. But I have changed my mind. Writing, for me, is no longer only a form of thought — it is also a form of struggle. As Camus said, we find ourselves "at sea in a rising tide"; as long as we are alive, we should row alongside everyone else: "The question is not whether we actively choose to engage, but that it is a form of conscript service."

Progressive Culture: Finally, would you tell us something about your current writing?

Liu Jiming: I am writing a full-length novel. From the second half of 2019 to the present, I have been working in seclusion on an island somewhere far from Wuhan. The specific content is not convenient to disclose for now, but I can tell you this: the scale of this novel far exceeds The Human Realm — it is another "unexpected gain" for me.

Progressive Culture: We look forward to the early publication of this important work. Thank you for accepting our interview!

The Authentic Voice of China's Modern Transformation

An Exclusive Interview with Gang Chen, Translator of the English Edition of Human Realm

Ma Zhuo & Gang Chen · March 20, 2026 · Source: Left Review (左评) Public Account

Original published at Wuyouzhixiang, web-edition

Interviewer: Ma Zhuo

Interviewee: Gang Chen, publisher at Vero Publishing (USA) and literary translator, currently residing in Florida. His principal translations include Black and White and Human Realm.

Ma Zhuo: Following Black and White, you have now translated another novel by Liu Jiming — Human Realm — into English. What was your thinking behind this decision?

Gang Chen: If Black and White is the "heavy artillery" of Liu Jiming's ideological maturity, then Human Realm is the work that sounded the keynote of his transition — from a neoliberal stance toward a socialist one. My reason for translating Human Realm is to show the world how a Chinese intellectual gradually moved away from writing shaped by "avant-garde literature" [note: the Chinese literary avant-garde movement of the 1980s, heavily influenced by Western modernism] and mainstream ideology, and found his way back to the land and the people. It is the logical starting point for understanding the full universe of Liu Jiming's work.

Ma Zhuo: Human Realm was published by the Writers Publishing House in 2016 — nearly a decade ago now. It made a powerful impression on the Chinese literary world upon its release: it ranked fourth on Harvest magazine's 2016 literary rankings, received a nomination for the Lu Yao Literary Prize [note: an award named after the author of Ordinary World, honoring works of realist fiction with broad popular appeal], was selected as one of the forty major novels of the forty years of Reform and Opening Up, and was hailed by critics as a pioneering work of new socialist literature. How do you see the inner connections between this novel and Black and White — what are their similarities and differences?

Gang Chen: The two are continuous with each other.

Connection: They share the same spiritual core — a deep concern for the fate of the countryside under the expansion of capital.

Difference: Human Realm was published in 2016, when Liu Jiming was still in the throes of his transition. The complete and radical ideological framework he would later display in Black and White is only just beginning to take shape in Human Realm.

Social receptivity: It is precisely because Human Realm retained more of literature's warmth and restraint that it was still accepted by the mainstream literary establishment of the time, earning multiple major prizes — the Harvest rankings, the Lu Yao Literary Prize nomination, and others.

Ma Zhuo: Liu Jiming once wrote in the afterword to Human Realm that it was the most important work of his life. Yet some readers feel that Black and White — judging by both the writing itself and the response it generated after publication — has clearly surpassed it. What is your view?

Gang Chen:

1. An "exponential leap" in narrative scale and historical scope

In terms of sheer volume and depth of time and space, Black and White presents an overwhelming case:

Scale: Critics once compared Human Realm to an elephant among novels — but having read Black and White, one would say that next to its 1.2 million Chinese characters, Human Realm is at most a tiger.

Historical span: If Human Realm is "a spiritual history of the reform era," focused primarily on reflection since the New Period [note: referring to the post-Mao era beginning in the late 1970s], then Black and White extends its reach across a full century of Chinese history, from the Revolution of 1911 to the early twenty-first century. It is not merely a contemporary history but a panoramic chronicle of modern Chinese social development.

2. A "downward shift" and "breakthrough" in readership

This is the most striking way in which Black and White surpasses its predecessor, embodying the principle of "written for the people, judged by the people":

Reader composition: The response to Human Realm was largely confined to professional critics and elite cultural circles. The commentators on Black and White, by contrast, are overwhelmingly ordinary readers — workers, farmers, teachers, doctors, and university students. This phenomenon-level enthusiasm among non-elite audiences is considered comparable only to Lu Yao's Ordinary World and Dao Lang's song "Luocha Haishi." [note: Ordinary World (平凡的世界) is a beloved realist novel by Lu Yao; "Luocha Haishi" (罗刹海市) is a 2023 song by the folk-pop artist Dao Lang that went viral as a parable of social critique]

Mode of circulation: Rather than following the traditional path from literary journal to publishing house, Black and White spread quietly among "the silent majority" through serialization online, an AI reading companion called "Xiaobai," and live audio-video broadcasts across multiple platforms — creating a distinctive chapter in the history of reading.

3. A radicalization of intellectual depth: from "reform" to "resistance"

In terms of ideological orientation, Black and White represents a major advance beyond Human Realm:

Paths of awakening: Ma La's awakening in Human Realm is closer to Levin's [note: Levin is the reflective landowner protagonist of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, known for his solitary moral searching] — solitary contemplation and social amelioration, as embodied in the founding of a cooperative. Wang Sheng in Black and White, by contrast, is thrust into far more direct and brutal class conflict and the predatory encirclement of power; his resistance carries a greater sense of tragic heroism and revolutionary urgency.

The return of class narrative: In Black and White, Liu Jiming breaks entirely free from the constraints of "pure literature" and reaches directly to the bottom of the age. The novel no longer merely looks with compassion upon the suffering of the lower classes; it employs a Marxist lens to lay bare the class roots of social tragedy, earning it the reputation of "the vanguard work of people's realism."

4. The complexity of the character gallery: a mirror that reveals history's demons

Black and White makes a more powerful contribution to the creation of representative characters than Human Realm:

Depth of antagonists: The novel gives us extraordinarily complex figures such as Song Qiankun, Wu Baizhong, and Hong Taixing. Song Qiankun in particular — the archetypal "true on both ends" [note: 两头真, a term describing those who were genuine revolutionaries in their youth and genuine in their later revisionism, but opportunists throughout] — delivers a penetrating exposé of the historical logic of opportunism within revolutionary ranks.

Social mirror: Through its portrayal of the "Yanshan Society" [note: a fictional elite networking club representing entrenched power interests] and the restructuring of Dongang Steel, the novel vividly renders the collusion between bureaucratic capital and comprador interest groups. This cold-eyed anatomizing of social relations cuts far deeper than the idealism that colors Human Realm.

5. The author's inner transformation: from "observer" to "participant"

Liu Jiming's own assessment of the two works reflects a profound shift in his spiritual orientation:

While writing Human Realm, he says, there was still a wall — or a pane of glass — between him and reality; he maintained the detachment of an observer. By the time he wrote Black and White, he had broken through that glass and plunged directly into the tangled mirror of the age, becoming a full participant.

He has freely acknowledged that Black and White was an "unexpected gift" from his writing life — perhaps even the crowning achievement with which he might bid farewell to literature, for, as he put it, "to write another word of fiction after this would be superfluous."

Ma Zhuo: Some critics have suggested that Ma La, the protagonist of Human Realm, and Wang Sheng, the protagonist of Black and White, share a great deal in common — that Ma La is Wang Sheng in middle age, and Wang Sheng is Ma La in his youth. Do you agree with this reading?

Gang Chen: I find it deeply convincing. Ma La is a peasant figure who returns to the land after serving his sentence — a man whose resilience, "solitary but never desolate," represents Liu Jiming's early exploration of what becomes of the idealist. What Wang Sheng undergoes in Black and White is a far more violent collision with society, while what Ma La embodies in Human Realm is a kind of commitment in the spirit of "pressing on even knowing it cannot be done" [note: 知其不可而为之, a Confucian phrase from the Analects describing moral persistence in the face of impossibility].

Ma Zhuo: Some critics have argued that, viewed through the lens of social development and character growth, Human Realm and Black and White are companion works. Do you agree?

Gang Chen: I do. Let me try to analyze this from three dimensions: social development, character growth, and literary value.

I. Social Development: A "progressive expansion of scope"

The broadening of narrative time and space: Human Realm focuses primarily on the urban-rural transformations since the New Period and is regarded as "a spiritual history of the reform era." Black and White achieves a tremendous leap beyond this, extending its reach across a century of Chinese history from the Revolution of 1911 to the early twenty-first century. If Human Realm is a history of one era, Black and White is a history of all eras — together they sketch out how Chinese society evolved from the age of revolution and socialist construction into the complex realities of the reform-and-opening period.

A holographic social portrait: Human Realm observes society through two cross-sections: Shenhuang Isle and the Yangtze Electromechanical Plant. Black and White, by contrast, functions like a hologram, gathering hundreds of representative figures from the highest corridors of power to the grassroots underclass, spanning the worlds of politics, economics, the judiciary, and academia, and laying bare the process by which bureaucratic capital and comprador forces merged into one.

II. Character Growth: A "spiritual relay race"

The "twin souls" of Ma La and Wang Sheng: Critical consensus holds that Wang Sheng in Black and White is Ma La in his youth, while Ma La in Human Realm is Wang Sheng in middle age.

Convergence of origins and initial convictions: Both men were born in the 1960s, both come from families with deep revolutionary backgrounds — Ma La's elder brother Ma Ke, Wang Sheng's father Wang Shengli — and both were steeped in socialist culture during their formative years.

Parallel moments of disorientation and ideological drift: Both were shaken in their youth by the influence of the "New Enlightenment" [note: the 1980s Chinese liberal intellectual movement] or by liberal mentors — figures like Lü Yongjia and Lang Yongliang. Wang Sheng even changed his name (from Wang Cheng to Wang Sheng) in an attempt to break with his past.

The continuity of awakening and resistance: Black and White ends with Wang Sheng walking out of a labor reform farm and beginning a new awakening; Human Realm opens with Ma La released from prison, returning to his native soil to found a cooperative. This exit and this entry together piece together the complete arc of an intellectual's journey — from individual striving to loss of self, and finally to a homecoming among the people.

The spiritual kinship of Gu Zheng and Murong Qiu: Gu Zheng can be seen as a younger incarnation of Murong Qiu — both women possess an intensely fastidious moral idealism, and both, when confronted with the squalor of reality, travel the same road from flight and avoidance to the courage of seeking a way forward through social engagement.

III. Literary Value: A "paradigm shift"

From "observer" to "participant": Liu Jiming has said himself that while writing Human Realm he remained an observer — his characters and their world still carried the heavy fragrance of idealism and romance. By the time of Black and White, he had smashed through the glass and touched the very bottom of the age; he had become a participant. Accordingly, Black and White is rawer, more brutal, and more sharply critical in its revelation of human nature than Human Realm.

If Human Realm is the pioneering work of "new socialist literature," then Black and White is the deepening and the breakthrough of that tradition. It completes what Human Realm left unfinished — extending the question of "who are the traitors" from history into the present, and raising explicitly the possibility of continuing the revolution.

In sum: Human Realm is like an opening statement, full of idealist coloring; Black and White is its weighty conclusion, arrived at after a comprehensive sociological reckoning with everything the first work proposed. They illuminate each other, and together they form something rare in contemporary literature: a "red literary family" united by a single epic logic.

Ma Zhuo: You have previously compared Black and White to Tolstoy's great novel War and Peace, and others have drawn comparisons between Human Realm and Anna Karenina, finding the two works kindred in narrative structure and characterization. Could you share your thoughts on this?

Gang Chen: The affinity between Human Realm and Anna Karenina lies in its inward spiritual gravity and its return to the land. Ma La's labor on the abandoned fields of Shenhuang Isle mirrors Levin's meditations in the fields — it is, in both cases, a re-consecration of the dignity of work. Black and White, on the other hand, is closer to the panoramic grandeur of War and Peace — that epic reckoning with the collision between the individual and the great wheel of history.

Ma Zhuo: Considering the intellectual and artistic achievements of Human Realm and Black and White, where would you place these two works — and their author, Liu Jiming — in the landscape of Chinese and world literature? What kind of influence might they go on to have?

Gang Chen:

I. Literary Standing: A Milestone of China's "People's Realism"

Filling a void in historical narrative: Black and White is considered to fill a significant gap in Chinese literature since the New Period. At a time when the mainstream literary world had largely retreated into personal desire, scar literature [note: 伤痕文学, a post-Cultural Revolution literary movement focused on personal trauma], or fantasy escapism, Liu Jiming stitched together the historical logic of "the first thirty years" [note: referring to the Mao era, 1949–1978] and "the later forty years" [note: the reform era, 1978 to the present], bridging the narrative rupture between two periods of the People's Republic.

A singular character gallery: He has successfully created complex antagonist archetypes in figures like Song Qiankun, Hong Taixing, and Wu Baizhong, as well as positive figures — Wang Shengli, the old principal, Luo Zheng, Wang Sheng — who either hold fast to their original convictions or find their way back after losing them. His penetrating analysis of the "opportunist revolutionary," exemplified by Song Qiankun, has been hailed as a blazing new beacon in China's literature of moral exposure.

A subversion of the mainstream aesthetic: His work has broken entirely free of the elitist "pure literature" paradigm, returning to the time-honored tradition of proletarian literature. If Human Realm is the pioneering work of "new socialist literature," then Black and White is the milestone of "people's realism."

II. Intellectual Achievement: A Vivid History of Contemporary Chinese Thought

Liu Jiming's work has transcended the purely literary, attaining a profound significance in both sociology and intellectual history.

Testimony of an era: His novels are regarded as a cold-eyed dissection of the social transformations since Reform and Opening Up, documenting the process by which the working class fell from being the leading class to becoming a vulnerable group.

The restoration of class narrative: In a depoliticized cultural climate, he has reestablished the analytical power of class analysis within literature, exposing the social reality of collusion between bureaucratic capital and comprador interest groups.

Spiritual redemption and awakening: His work explores how intellectuals can break free from the entrapments of individualism and liberalism and find their way back, at last, to a position among the people.

III. A World Literary Horizon: The International Resonance of an Eastern Epic

As Black and White has been translated and circulated, Liu Jiming's literary stature has begun to find its footing in a global frame of reference.

Measured against Tolstoy: Russian translator Ilya Farikovsky has argued that in terms of narrative scale and its bitter meditation on revolution, Black and White can only be compared to Tolstoy's War and Peace.

The potential of a world classic: Translator Gang Chen has observed that the significance of Black and White to contemporary China is analogous to that of Tolstoy's masterpiece to nineteenth-century Russia — and that it stands as a powerful contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The continuation of critical realism: His work extends the tradition of Hugo, Balzac, and Gorky — that great lineage of world literature that keeps faith with the underclass and condemns oppression — and sends out to the world the authentic voice of China's modern transformation.

IV. Future Influence: Seeds of Enlightenment for a New Age of Awakening

These two major works may go on to produce far-reaching social and cultural effects:

The awakening of a new generation: The young characters who appear at the close of the novels — Tian Qingqing, Liang Tian, and others — symbolize the revival and transmission of Marxism in the twenty-first century. The works are poised to serve as "consciousness-awakening texts" for a generation of young people ground down by capital.

The return of people's art: The circulation model of Black and White — "written for the people, judged by the people" — heralds a renaissance of people's art that breaks free from elite monopoly and returns to a popular system of evaluation.

An anchor for historical truth: As time passes, these two works will stand as "testimony against time" — becoming the most authentic, most indelible historical coordinates by which future generations look back upon this century of history, and especially upon the pivotal transformations of the reform era.

Ma Zhuo: Are there plans to adapt Human Realm and Black and White for television?

Gang Chen: Substantial progress has already been made on adapting Human Realm for the screen: ten episodes, forty-five minutes each, totaling four hundred and fifty minutes, with production to be completed before the end of the year. Once it has been successfully broadcast, we plan to bring Black and White to the screen as well — currently projected at eighty episodes.

Ma Zhuo: What a magnificent undertaking — truly something to look forward to. We wish you every success!

(Source: Cao Zhenglu–Liu Jiming Research Center)