Theater‐fiction and hallucinatory realism in Mo Yan’s The Sandalwood Death

As a literary sub‐genre, theater‐fiction implies juxtapositions, collisions, and interactions between theater and novel, which renders it necessary to have literary studies intersected by the theories and concepts of theater and performance studies. Based on a reinterpretation of “theater‐fiction” in light of recent developments in intermedial studies, some questions will be discussed concerning the relations between theater and novel in Mo Yan’s The Sandalwood Death : What is unique about the theater‐fiction intersection in it? How does this bring about innovations in narrative? How does the hybrid form of theater‐fiction contribute to the so‐called “hallucinatory realism” in this novel, which is also characteristic of Mo Yan’s writings in general? Then, it argues that Mo Yan’s fiction can become an important means of political intervention as it plays a significant role in transforming its readers.