Volume 9, No.3

To advance the global dissemination of Chinese literature and foster mutual learning between Chinese and world literature, Interdisciplinary Studies of Literature has launched the “World Eminent Writers and Cutting-Edge Scholarship” forum. This special issue, dedicated to “Studies of Tie Ning’s Literary Writing and Thought,” compiles 20 research articles that offer a comprehensive exploration of the literary practice and intellectual vision of Tie Ning, a preeminent figure in contemporary Chinese literature. The contributions are grouped into three thematic categories, providing multifaceted perspectives on her work: (1) Expert Depth Studies, featuring senior scholars who trace the evolution of Tie Ning’s writing and analyze the expansion of her literary thought from a feminine perspective towards depicting universal human dilemmas; (2) Interdisciplinary Innovation, wherein scholars from fields such as law, sociology, and linguistics employ specialized theoretical frameworks to analyze the cross-disciplinary value of her works, including power ethics, folk order, and linguistic artistry; (3) Computational Literary Analysis, applying AI tools for textual data analysis, utilizing methods like keyword frequency statistics and character network visualization to reveal distinctive creative features. Tie Ning’s writing, deeply rooted in Chinese realities while portraying shared human emotions and values, constitutes a vital component of world literature. As a seminal writer of contemporary Chinese literature, Tie Ning has secured her place among the world’s eminent authors through the “distinctly Chinese perspective” and “profound humanistic concern” embodied in her oeuvre.

The modern era arises from the interplay of ancient and contemporary, Chinese and foreign cultures, characterized throughout by diverse forms of cultural crossvergence. Since modern times, many prominent cultural figures and writers have gradually developed their cultural views and literary pursuits through the process of cultural crossvergence. The same is true of Tie Ning. In the new historical period, she cultivated her own literary path through the fusion of Chinese ancient and modern culture with foreign influences, creating her distinctive “Sanli” life and literary world. Tie Ning has continuously absorbed diverse cultural and ideological resources and, through creative integration, formed her own literary concepts and pursued storytelling that resonates widely. Clearly, no single cultural resource could account for the richness of her work. It is precisely the encounter and negotiation of diverse cultures that have shaped Tie Ning. As she gradually embraced “world literature,” she also reached out to the world. Her development is inspiring both in terms of cultivating a passion for reading and a sense of literary mission to benefit society, and in fostering broad-mindedness, magnanimity, and human warmth.

This paper traces the artistic evolution of Tie Ning’s fiction, identifying four distinct phases: the pure “Xiangxue” period, the complex “The Rose Door” period, the stage of “complex simplicity” represented by The Bathing Women, and the integrative “Clumsy Flower” period. The purity, optimism, and serenity of the “Xiangxue” period resonated with the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty in the early years of China’s reform and opening-up. By contrast, the turbulence and restlessness from the mid-1980s to the 1990s, as seen in The Rose Door, reflected Tie Ning’s efforts to fully reveal the complexities of human nature and to deepen literary expression, while also corresponding to the pluralization of Chinese society and culture during that era. Published in the new century, The Bathing Women investigates into the soul through a metaphorical process of “bathing,” achieving a unity of spirit and body and moving from complexity toward a purified clarity and serenity. Clumsy Flower marks Tie Ning’s new stage of integration: through historicized yet quotidian narratives, it seeks enduring forms of beauty-emotional, folkloric, and moral-while affirming both the goodness of human nature and the vitality of the national spirit.

Based on literary feelings and literary experiences, the essay explores Tie Ning’s fictions from three aspects: literary warmth, cultural depth, and aesthetic height. It argues that Tie Ning’s fiction constantly explore the essence of humanity and its transformations and complexities in certain contexts, the complicated relationships between human and human, human and society, aiming at expressing the literary warmth of humanity. Tie Ning in her meditation of real life makes efforts to explore how people break out of realistic dilemmas, reflects on the meaning and value of life through their life experience, and intensifies the cultural depth of her work in deepening its intellectual depth. It also demonstrates that she insistently pursues the new forms of artistic expression and innovations, and enhances the artistic and aesthetic height of her work in the process of negating and transcending herself.

Tie Ning’s novels organically integrate specific issues of their era and history with grand themes of human civilization, thereby profoundly revealing human alienation within the historical process of Chinese modernity. In dialogue with other female writers of her time, Tie Ning also attempts to counter these dilemmas through the female “Xiangchou Utopia,” using it as a launching point to explore Chinese aesthetic modernity. The female “Xiangchou Utopia” encapsulates the female subject’s nostalgic remembrance and yearning for an idyllic past, constituting a spiritual impetus capable of transforming reality. It embodies Chinese aesthetic modernity as both an aesthetic expression of profound social transformation, the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the socialist ideal and its contemporary reconstruction, and an aesthetic articulation of the quest for female freedom and liberation within these processes.

Beyond literary creation, Tie Ning has produced a large number of reflections on writing-through interviews, essays, and commentaries on literary phenomena-as well as interpretations of cultural policies. These literary thoughts run throughout her creative and professional career. Her earliest writings on creation can be traced back to 1982. In these works, she developed aesthetic notions such as “purity,” “warmth,” and “the everyday world of human life,” alongside creative techniques of “the expression of thought,” “constructive ambiguity,” and “restraint.” The concept “literature as light” represents her most significant literary view, highlighting “the weight of reading” as essential to people’s spiritual life. As a female writer, Tie Ning also proposed a transcendent “third-gender perspective” in the context of women’s writing. Moreover, she skillfully balanced and transformed her dual identity as a writer and as Chairwoman of the China Writers Association, demonstrating leadership in both creative and institutional domains. In her role as Chairwoman, she articulated cultural policies extensively. Tie Ning’s creative discourse, critical discourse, and policy discourse are not separate or isolated, but rather closely connected and intertwined, together forming her profound and dynamic literary thought.

Tie Ning is a significantly influential contemporary Chinese writer. Her novels fully showcase the cultural individuality of her era, characterized by unrestrained emotions and rich, nuanced psychological depictions, culminating in a unique literary style. Spanning a considerable historical period, Tie Ning’s novels exhibit complex shifts in narrative style across different phases, reflecting evolving emotional orientations, individual experiences, and literary perspectives. Overall, her works employ three prominent narrative strategies: linear narration, retrospective narration, and interwoven narration. In terms of thematic depth, they profoundly explore humanity with remarkable historical depth, aesthetic height, and intellectual profundity. Tie Ning’s novels vividly portray the existential value and conflicts of meaning experienced by individuals within society and history, revealing the vicissitudes of life within specific contexts. They pursue the perfection of human nature while excavating its complexities, accompanied by unyielding questioning. Collectively, they embody the reflections of an exceptional writer on China’s socio-historical development.

Clumsy Flower, a novel by Tie Ning, embodies the turn toward literary localization in Chinese novel writing at the beginning of the new century. Firstly, set in the turbulent late Qing and Republican eras, the narrative centers on the residents of Clumsy Flower Village and their multifaceted ethical choices-cultural, political, religious, and personal-projecting the enduring spirit of the Chinese nation. Secondly, Clumsy Flower does not reject the Western modern civilization and the Christian tradition, meanwhile critically examines the Japanese civilization, aiming to construct a modern civilization of the Chinese nation. Thirdly, Clumsy Flower is dedicated to continuing and transforming the narrative tradition of Chinese classical novels represented by Dream of the Red Chamber, consequently promoting the contemporary construction of Chinese novel’s national form. As such, the work offers significant insights for contemporary Chinese literature in the new era.

Tie Ning had a strong awareness of language improvement in the early stages of her creative career. Poetic characteristic is the core feature of the language in Tie Ning’s novels, but its form of expression has undergone significant changes as Tie Ning’s creativity has matured. The 1970s and early 1980s marked the beginning of Tie Ning’s novel writing career. During this period, her novel language already showed an awareness of transcending the traces of the era’s discourse, and the poetic characteristic of her language allowed many of the novels she wrote during this time to remain readable today. From the mid-1980s to the 1990s was the period of maturity for Tie Ning’s novel language. The Gate of Roses showcased her linguistic achievements during this period. The features of her language in this phase were flexible and varied, free and unconstrained, with rich vocabulary and diverse sentence structures. Many expressions may seem unconventional, but they are precisely a display of free passion, a carnival of language. Many of Tie Ning’s works can be regarded as linguistic models of the 1980s and 1990s, and her novel language made an important contribution to the development and change of modern Chinese during this period.