On the Postmodernity in a Dictionary of Maqiao

Abstract

A Dictionary of Maqiao, a novel written by Chinese writer Han Shaogong and translated into English by Julia Lovell, is first published in 1996 by The Writers Publishing House and selected by Yazhou Zhoukan as one of the top hundred greatest Chinese novels in the 20th century. Written in the form of a dictionary, or more accurately an encyclopedia, instead of a normal novel form, this novel depicts stories happened in Maqiao, a noteless village in Hunan Province, China. In the theoretic framework of postmodernism, this paper probes into Han Shaogong's A Dictionary of Maqiao, so as to analyze and illustrate in the representative stories the manifestations of postmodern theories, mainly theories of discourse, narrative, and feminism.