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Transnational urban encounters: existential wanderings in Xue Yiwei’s collection Shenzheners

  • Giulia Rampolla

The fictional works of the Chinese writer Xue Yiwei, who migrated to Canada in 2002, can be regarded as a byproduct of cross-border mobility and cultural displacement. This paper examines the relationship between the individual and the metropolis in four short stories from the collection Shenzheners, focusing on the impact of the writer’s transcontinental relocation on his representation of city dwellers and intercultural encounters. This research adopts an interdisciplinary framework, which merges textual analysis with the approaches of Cultural Studies and Literary Urban Studies, and places this theoretical construction within a transnational context. By investigating the multiple narrative forms Xue Yiwei uses to question stereotypical cultural boundaries and to build a bridge between Chinese and global literatures, the connection between his experience of mobility and his hybrid fictional microcosm will be explored.

  • Keywords:
  • Global Chinese literature,
  • transnational writers,
  • transculturalism in Chinese fiction,
  • Chinese urban literature,
  • Shenzhen fiction,
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Giulia Rampolla

Rome University of International Studies, Italy - ORCID: 0009-0006-1030-4122

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  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Pages: 175-194
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2023 Author(s)

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  • Publication Year: 2023
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Transnational urban encounters: existential wanderings in Xue Yiwei’s collection Shenzheners

Authors

Giulia Rampolla

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0068-4.15

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

Words and visions around/about Chinese transnational mobilities 流动

Editors

Valentina Pedone, Miriam Castorina

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

204

Publication Year

2023

Copyright Information

© 2023 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0068-4

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0067-7

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0068-4

eISBN (epub)

979-12-215-0069-1

Series Title

Studi e saggi

Series ISSN

2704-6478

Series E-ISSN

2704-5919

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