Biji (Chinese literature)


Biji is a genre in classical Chinese literature. It roughly translates "notebook". A book of biji can contain anecdotes, quotations, random musings, philological speculations, literary criticism and indeed everything that the author deems worth recording. The genre first appeared during the Wei and Jin dynasties, and matured during the Tang Dynasty. The biji of that period of time mostly contains the believe-it-or-not kind of anecdotes, and many of them can be treated as collections of short fictions. To differentiate this kind of "biji fiction" from the general biji, the former is later called "biji xiaoshuo". Biji flourished during the Song Dynasty, and continued to flourish during the later dynasties.
Famous works of biji include: