ABSTRACT
Jia Pingwa’s literary career is still unfolding and, more likely than not, it will continue to unfold in unexpected ways. He has constantly transcended and reinvented himself as a writer over the last three decades. Just over fifty, he has yet years of writing life ahead of him and it is highly unpredictable in which direction his writing will develop. Currently, he has just finished another major novel and is anxiously awaiting the authorization for the release of Defunct Capital. What can be said with certainty is that Jia Pingwa will continue to write and that his writing will continue to be innovative and transcend boundaries. He perceives an obstruction to the potential depth of contemporary Chinese literature and considers removing it as the most difficult task he and other Chinese writers face. In his view, Chinese literature is limited because there is a limit to the depth of experience in contemporary Chinese life, which in turn leads to limited depths as articulated by individual writers in the Chinese language and Chinese narrative traditions.1 Jia Pingwa, nevertheless, is one of the few writers who began publishing in the 1970s and have remained prolific until the present. In more than three decades of writing, Jia Pingwa has travelled a long distance, intellectually, aesthetically and emotionally, if not physically.
