Wen, Zhu 1967-

PERSONAL:

Born 1967, in Quanzhou, China.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Beijing, China.

CAREER:

Writer and film director. Worked in a thermal power plant, 1989-1994; full-time writer, 1994—.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Grand jury prize, Venice Film Festival, 2001, for Seafood; NETPAC prize, Berlin Festival, 2004, for South of the Clouds.

WRITINGS:

Bing jian qian ye, Dalian chu ban she (Dalian, China), 1993.

I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, translation by Julia Lovell, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2006.

Author of other books in Chinese. Contributor to Chinese literary journals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Zhu Wen is a Chinese writer and film director. Wen worked at a thermal power plant in China for five years, quitting in 1994 to pursue writing full time. He worked as a film director as well, with several of his films earning recognition and awards at international festivals. When asked to compare his films to his stories in an interview on the Sense of Cinema Web site, Wen stated: "No matter whether it's a film or a novel, I think you can tell it's the same style. When I finished my sixth book I thought that I wanted to find a way to improve but I felt I could not. I felt like trying filmmaking, so I did. And suddenly, everything is interesting, everything is new, and you are excited again. You have passion again."

In 2006 Wen published a short-story collection I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, translated into English by Julia Lovell. The collection has varied topics and consists of five novellas and a short story. The theme is post-Mao China, where violence continues and capitalism begins to flourish.

Jason McGrath, writing on the Ohio State University, Modern Chinese Literature & Culture Resource Center Web site, noted that "one may quibble over the choices of works translated in this volume." McGrath continued: "It is with the occasionally disturbing confrontation of this underlying nihilism that Zhu Wen's stories transcend being merely clever celebrations of the hedonistic new consumer lifestyle that in effect has become the legitimating ideology of the postsocialist age." McGrath also mentioned that "despite the obvious hints of autobiographical detail, … the real strength of these stories is their penetrating observation of the rationalizations, self-absorption, and empty pleasures with which their protagonists and other characters seek to obscure an underlying, anxiety-provoking void." Philip F. Williams, writing in World Literature Today, called Wen's style of fiction "picaresque." Williams observed that "in the informative and well-written preface to her translation of these six works of fiction, Julia Lovell does an excellent job of placing Zhu Wen's writings within the broader social and cultural context of 1990s urban China."

Sebastian Veg, writing in China Perspectives, commented that "Zhu Wen the writer … promotes the consumable nature of his production. He writes because he feels compelled to say new things, in the enthusiasm of youth, rejecting routine, and prefers to turn to cinema rather than repeat himself. This writing is indeed related to a particular generation." Veg concluded that "the humour and irony of the narrators give flesh to this diffuse resistance which, even if it contains cynicism in part, is not simply about posturing. In short, the timely publication of this collection, with the help of an excellent translation, enables us to hear the voice of an innovative writer and filmmaker, who has contributed to shaping the present-day Chinese literary world." A contributor to Publishers Weekly mentioned that I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China "has its tedious moments, but it is saved by a narrative voice that is … highly readable."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

China Perspectives, first quarter, 2007, Sebastian Veg, review of I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China.

Far Eastern Economic Review, March, 2007, Jonathan Mirsky, review of I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, p. 73.

London Review of Books, September 6, 2007, Jonathan Spence, review of I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, p. 12.

Publishers Weekly, September 18, 2006, review of I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, p. 31.

World Literature Today, November 1, 2007, Philip F. Williams, review of I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China, p. 66.

ONLINE

Ohio State University, Modern Chinese Literature & Culture Resource Center Web site,http://mclc.osu.edu/ (February 5, 2008), Jason McGrath, review of I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China.

Sense of Cinema,http://www.senseofcinema.com/ (February 5, 2008), Kevin Lee, author interview.