The writer as a historical figure of modern China: Ye Zhaoyan's passionate memory and fictional history

This article examines the writings of Ye Zhaoyan, one of the most important contemporary Chinese writes. As the grandson of Ye Shengtao, a leading May Fourth writer, Ye Zhaoyan always feels responsible for connecting the contemporary with the early Republican period. The ways in which he makes the connection are interesting: he disguises under his popular appeals serious and critical reflections upon the relationship between history, memory, and love. I highlight Ye's active remembrance of what has been repressed by the grand history, his constant examination of the writing of history through creating the writer as a historical figure of modern China, and his embedment of historical experience in the everyday.