Liu, Na’o (1905–1940)

On 3 September 1940 Liu Na’ou (1905–40), the Taiwan-born, Japan-educated leader of the Shanghai Neo-Sensation School, was killed by an unknown gunman. He had just succeeded to the directorship of National Subjects Daily after Mu Shiying (1912–40), a fellow Neo-Sensation writer and filmmaker who had likewise been assassinated on the job. It is unknown whether these two murders were connected. National Subjects Daily was a news agency run by Wang Jingwei’s puppet regime collaborating with the Japanese. It could be the Japanese who had Liu killed for allegedly playing double agent for the Chinese Nationalist Party or, conversely, the latter who retaliated against him for collaborating with the Japanese.

Tradition and Hybridity in Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying

This chapter focuses on the 1930s New Sensationist (xinganjuepai) writers Shi Zhecun and Mu Shiying, whose works are shown in later chapters to have influenced the subsequent literary scene. They are seen here as an avant-garde group that wrote works in opposition to the overall direction of the contemporary literary field. Through close analysis of a number of short stories, the chapter demonstrates how these authors constructed hybrid works that incorporated tropes and stereotypes from popular literature, legend, tradition, literature and myth. By combining the real with the otherworldly and the imagined, these authors rejected realism and the politicisation of literature promoted at the time by the League of Left-wing Writers. The chapter also establishes aspects of these writers’ works that are used for later comparison.