“Dreams” and “Reality” in Shen Congwen’s Wartime Works

Shen Congwen, who had always resisted party factionalism, despised the commercialization of literature and only produced work based on his own artistic integrity. Although Shen started as a soldier without any formal diplomas whatsovever, he honed his writing from the moment he arrived alone in Beijing from West Hunan, until he became a celebrated author in Beijing in the 1920s, and in Shanghai in the 1930s. Through standout works as Congwen’s Autobiography, written in Qingdao in 1932, and Border Town, published in 1934, Shen’s fame was clearly growing. In Kunming in 1939, Shen was appointed associate professor at the National Southwest Associated University, teaching New Literature. With regard to Shen’s work in the 1940s, the gulf and misalignment between the search for the artistic values that he firmly believed in and the ideal writer in terms of the Nationalist Party’s anti-Japanese struggle was no minor matter.