CONTEMPORARY CHINESE MINORITY WRITERS AND THEIR MASTERPIECES

 This book is a collection of twenty-five outstanding minority writers and a selection of their masterpieces in contemporary China. Most of them have won the Horse Award for national minority literatures in China. China is a country with 56 ethnic groups — like a quilt made with 56 panels, each different but a part of the fabric. Since the founding of new China in 1949, minority writers have been flourishing. The transformation of society that is the result of China’s growth and the worldwide advancement in technology has brought about tremendous changes in the areas inhabited by ethnic minority groups. Their diverse lives in these areas and their unique ideas and feelings have contributed much to their writings. Rooted in their ethnic cultures, these writers have shaped many artistic images with salient ethnic features while presenting their ethnic mentality, lives, and their cultural traditions. Their writings are models of ethnic cultural continuity. When we place their writings into the cultural contexts, many cultural values are highlighted, which otherwise might have been overlooked by the cultural mainstream. Their writings are characterized by plain ecological awareness and truth, goodness, and the beauty of human beings. The advantage of minority literature lies in the fact that it seeks the universality of human beings amid the uniqueness of the minority people. From this book, readers may gain an overview of contemporary Chinese minority writers and the multihued cultures of China.