ABSTRACT
From time travel to fantasy, warrior legends to teen romance, historical fiction to science fiction, internet literature has emerged and blossomed in China since the late 1990s. It all started with amateur writers and literary enthusiasts publishing original, long-form serialised writings mainly comprising fiction in online discussion forums and literary websites. With no financial ambitions, internet literature writers started writing online out of pure interest and the desire for self-expression and social communication (Hockx, 2015). In a country where literary production has long been regarded as a tool of propaganda and confined to elite professionals, internet literature has flourished owing to lower entry barriers and weaker censorship in the online space.
