Xu Xing (writer)


Xu Xing, is a Chinese writer, cultural scholar and independent documentary director from Beijing.

Life

Xu Xing, a famous Chinese writer and cultural scholar,
After graduating from high school in 1975, Xu Xing went to Zhidan county in northern Shan’xi province to jump the queue of working in countryside. He joined the army in 1977 and served in the 21st Corps of Lanzhou Military Region.
In 1981 Xu Xing returned to Beijing after demobilizing from the army. He worked as a waiter and cleaner in Peking Duck House at Hepingmen and began to write. Within six months, he wrote his novel Variations Without a Theme.
The novella Variations Without a Theme was not published until 1985, which aroused a great response and became one of the representatives of "avant-garde novels" in China. The emergence of avant-garde novelists in those years made novel writing take on a brand new form. It made literary discourse greatly break through the narrative and description functions of traditional literary language and created new emotional expression and metaphorical symbolic functions, giving a shock to traditional realistic literary concepts.
Variations Without a Theme won the best short story award at Peking University Student Art Festival in 1989. Later, he published the novellas The Story of A City and Hungry Mice. Short stories, The City That Has Lost Its Song, How Did I Go Mad, Love Story, Help, Martyr, Don’t Cry At the Crossing etc.; The plays, The Story of a King and a Horse and How a Play was Finished... ; the novel All that Left is Yours as well as the collection of novels, Variations Without a Theme.
In 1989, Xu Xing accepted the invitation of Berlin University of the Arts and left China to live in Germany temporarily as a visiting scholar at the university of Heidelberg. In Heidelberg, he helped resume the publication of Today, the most influential overseas Chinese literary magazine. In the same year, he won the Swedish Kult Tucholsky Prize from Pen Sweden.
Later, Xu Xing accepted the invitation of Heinrich Boer foundation and lived in Boer's home for writing. Meanwhile, he participated in Heidelberg overseas Chinese literature conference.
After returning to China from Federal Republic of Germany, Xu Xing was selected as one of 240 outstanding novelists in the world by France .
In five years between 1991 and 1996 Xu Xing completed the novel All that Left is Yours.
Since 2002, Xu Xing began shooting documentary films. His first documentary Drawing Your Eyes and Eyebrows by the Cliff was completed in 2002. This year he also hosted "Xu Xing Studio" in the Chinese Language Center of the University of Frankfurt, Germany.
From 2005 to 2007, Xu Xing shot the documentary A Chronicle of My Cultural Revolution with France's TV5 TV station. This documentary was based on his personal experiences growing up in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. He tried to integrate personal memory with national collective memory, which may help the two types of memories confirm and support each other so as to provide today's audience with a kind of both individual and public historical statements. This film has been invited by foreign universities for many times to broadcast in the United States, Germany, Italy, France and other places.
Invited by Feuchtwanger Fellowship Villa Aurora, LA foundation, for one year and screened A Chronicle of My Cultural Revolution in University of San Diego, UCLA, University of Southern California, University of Pittsburgh, Harvard University and Columbia University in turn.
He was one of the judges at the 9th and 10th .
As a member of Chinese Literature, Forum Xu Xing was invited to participate in the . Meanwhile, he became a member of Heidelberg State Library Reading Forum.
A Chronicle of My Cultural Revolution, Beijing. The film mainly tells the stories of Lao Jin, the driver of an unlicensed taxi, and artists in Song Zhuang. After the film was completed, it was invited to be shown at the university of Venice, the University of Naples in Italy and Columbia University in the United States.
In 1994 and two decades later in 2004, he participated in the , an important literary festival in the world. He delivered a keynote speech on Chinese literature, making contributions to Chinese literature.
From 2010 to 2014, he shot the documentary :zh:罪行摘要|Crime Summary. Most people like to read the history of people with power, status and influence, but few pay attention to ordinary people. Xu Xing accidentally got a pile of prisoners’ forms during the cultural revolution. The “criminals” in the tables " were farmers. Full of doubts, Xu Xing carried his camera and went to shoot and interview those farmers in Zhejiang Province. This documentary film has been widely regarded fill the domestic and foreign academic void in the study of the cultural revolution in China rural areas and farmers.
In 2014, Xu Xing won the 5th Korea Gwangwa Gate highest artistic achievement award.
For about 20 years Xu Xing has been invited to attend the academic visit, cultural studies, film screenings and other activities by Harvard University, the University of Pittsburgh, Barnard College, Columbia University, University of Heidelberg, Germany, France Academy of Oriental Language Institute and other universities. In recent years he has been to Yale University, Duke University, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Freiburg, Naples University, University of Milan, University of Venice for academic visits, academic speeches and film screenings.
In 2018, Xu Xing completed the shooting and editing of the documentary The Day of Reckoning
In 2018, Xu Xing was invited by Boston University to teach Chinese independent film production in spring semester as a visiting professor. In the same year, he was invited by the University of Heidelberg to teach Chinese independent film production in fall semester as a visiting professor.

List of works

Xu Xing's major works include the novel All that Left is Yours, short and medium stories Variations Without a Theme The City That Has Lost Its Song, How Did I Go Mad, The plays, Sunday Morning, Somewhere…, The Story of a King and a Horse and How a Play was Finished.... His debut novel Variations Without a Theme, published by People's Literature, is regarded as one of the landmark works of Chinese contemporary literature. His works have been translated into English, Japanese, French, Italian, German and other languages.
In 1986, his five short stories were translated and published in Japan. In 1992, Variations Without a Theme was published in French and in Italy.
In 1994 All that Left is Yours was published in France by L’Olivier
and nominated for the Prix Médicis étranger Prize in foreign studies. In the same year its German, Italian and Spanish editions were published. Many of his works have been published in Taiwan, Japan and Australia.
In 1995 the story collection Variations Without a Theme and Other Stories was published in English by Wild Peony Publisher in the United States.
Xu Xing's main documentaries are Drawing Your Eyes and Eyebrows by the Cliff ， 5+5, Crime Summary, A Chronicle of My Cultural Revolution and The Day of Reckoning.
NovelYear of PublicationPublisher
Variations Without a Theme1985The Writer's Publishing House
The Story of A City1986
Martyr1986The Writer's Publishing House
Don’t Cry at the Crossing1986The Writer's Publishing House
Hungry Mice1988Harvest
Help1988Harvest
All that Left is Yours 1989
How Did I Go Mad,1992Today
The City That Has Lost Its Song1992Today

DocumentariesYear of Production
Drawing Your Eyes and Eyebrows by the Cliff2002
A Chronicle of My Cultural Revolution2005–2007
5+52010
Crime Summary2010–2014
The Day of Reckoning2018

List of Awards