How Locality Generates Modernity: Reflections on Qiao Ye's Baoshui Village

Abstract

Novel writings in China in 2023 display a tendency toward locality which exhibits two characteristics: One is the “sense of hometown,” and the other is the “integration of locality with modernity.” Qiao Ye’s novel Baoshui Village is a representative work that achieves “modernity” through “locality.” How contemporary novels portray the changing countryside, and how they handle and grasp the relationship and proportion between change and constancy; how to find the right way to integrate the geographical, ethnic, and modern aspects of a novel; how locality generates modernity; and how modernity can accommodate and activate locality are not only theoretical questions that need to be deeply explored but also issues of writing that need continuous exploration in practice. In this sense, Baoshui Village is worth cherishing.

Key words： Qiao Ye; Baoshui Village; locality; modernity; rural writing