Courting controversy

Making literary waves is second nature to Jia Pingwa, who recently published his latest novel, The Mountain Stories.

Jia Pingwa has been caught in controversies several times in his writing career that spans more than 45 years. His Ruined City was banned for 16 years until 2009, and he likens it to a "child with unlucky fate".

Then, he courted controversy again with Ji Hua, a novel about an abducted woman, published in 2016.

In this book, Jia had the protagonist return to the place where she was kept captive because she could not go back to her former life.

It has been two years since the novel's release, but the work still raises eyebrows with its storyline.

Speaking about the novel, Jia says: "I respect women and sympathize with them."

And responding to the Chinese media, he says any comments and amplification of the original text is not right.

"As to the problems in rural areas, I'm actually in a dilemma over whether to praise or criticize. So, what I did was to represent the pains and complexity of human nature during social spasms as it progresses," he says.

This book is not the first time that Jia has attempted to focus on human nature and reveal the complexity of society.

In his 2007 novel Happy Dreams, he focused on farmers and their dilemma of staying on in the city or going back to the countryside.

The theme of dealing with dilemma also lingers over his latest novel, The Mountain Stories (Shan Ben), released in April by two publishers, one for the paperback, one for hardback.

"In the book, Jia depicts people from the grassroots who are simple and honest, and it is also them, at least some of them, who are cruel and evil, and sometimes bloodthirsty," critic Chen Sihe says.

"He captures conflicts."

Jia is also prolific. His latest work is his fifth since 2011, when he published Old Kiln.

His other works were The Lantern Bearer (2013), Lao Sheng (2014), Ji Hua (2016) and Shan Ben (2018).

Commenting on his ability to churn out works regularly, publishing veteran Pan Kaixiong says: "It's difficult even for a younger writer to maintain the momentum and quality that Jia manages. And each of his novels is distinctive."

Pan says Jia's works are the literary representation of contemporary Chinese history, from the early 1900s to the present.

Since 1973, Jia has published 16 novels and other works.