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Writing the literature of non‐denial
Author(s) -
Xi Xu
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
world englishes
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.6
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1467-971X
pISSN - 0883-2919
DOI - 10.1111/1467-971x.00190
Subject(s) - denial , identity (music) , ethnic group , mandarin chinese , national identity , politics , sociology , linguistics , creativity , history , media studies , aesthetics , law , psychology , political science , anthropology , art , philosophy , psychoanalysis
The paper is divided into three sections, and traces my evolution as a ‘Hong Kong writer’ in English through questions of identity, language and creativity. In ‘Ethnicity and culture,’ I discuss how both factors constrain and heighten my creative process. Despite my Hong Kong origins, I am questionably ‘local’ because of my ethnicity and personal history. The city itself embraces a schizophrenic identity, neither Chinese nor Western, and lacks a ‘national culture’. This offers rich material for fiction but is also confusing. ‘Language as stumbling block’ delves into being jammed between two national Englishes, British and American, in trying to give voice to Hong Kong’s socio‐political situation. The other linguistic issue, Chinese, is addressed by studying Mandarin in the US, so that my English is ultimately enriched by Chinese. Finally, ‘Beyond the denial of self’ focuses on my most recently completed novel The Unwalled City. In writing it, I come to grips with many of the issues raised in the first two sections of this paper. Not denying reality as I know it is central to the process. The novel becomes my Hong Kong statement of a city and its people whose curious reality cannot be ignored.