This book examines the work of a group of young avant garde fiction writers who emerged on the Chinese literary scene from the mid-1980s onwards. Exhibiting strategies of anti-mainstream, anti-paradigmatic discourse these writers debunked the traditional literary conventions of a hitherto very closed Chinese society.

1. Introduction 2. Fiction as Artifact 3. The Postmodern Metafictive Strategy 4. Re-Envisioning China's Past 5. Carnivalization of Language 6. Conclusions

Yongchun Cai is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Translation at the Chinese University Hong Kong.