Chinese Literature and Culture Magazine - Volume 09, May 2017

In this issue

Celebrated Chinese writer Zhang Wei, whose novel You Are on the Plateau won China’s prestigious Mao Dun Prize for Literature in 2011, is also a powerful short story writer. His imaginative power, ability to skillfully craft a story, and picturesque use of language are rarely found in other writers. Zhang Wei is well known in China as a master of fiction. In this volume, we have Chu Dongwei’s carefully translated story “A Bitter Debate in a Dream” to go with the Chinese original by Zhang Wei and a written seminar consisting of three commentaries and one scholarly essay. In the three commentaries, Canadian author Fraser Sutherland’s “A Lesson of Sorts: a Commentary on ‘A Bitter Debate in a Dream,’” O. Henry Prize winner Caitlin Horrocks’ “A Meaningful Dream Scene: on Zhang Wei’s ‘A Bitter Debate in a Dream,’” and writing professor Craig Hulst’s “Practical and Philosophical Issues: Humans and Their Dogs: a Commentary on Zhang Wei’s ‘A Bitter Debate in a Dream,” and Dr. Brian Cope’s essay “Through Bitterness Something Ecological Grows: Zhang Wei’s Ecological Allegory,” you will find interesting angles from which the writers and scholars approach the story.