Contemporary Representation of Alcoholism in Neo-Dongbei Literature by Jia Hangjia and “Three Icons of Dongbei Renaissance”

Literary works based on Dongbei (aka Northeast China) or composed by Dongbei-born writers have been playing a preponderant role in modern Chinese literature, and the 1930s witnessed an upsurge in Dongbei literary works concerning patriotism. In contemporary China, there is a recent resurgence of Dongbei-born writers who are collectively referred to as “neo-Dongbei writers”, exemplified by “three icons of Dongbei Renaissance”, viz. 双雪涛 Shuang Xuetao (1983-), 班宇 Ban Yu (1986-) and 郑执 Zheng Zhi (1987-). In addition to redundancy triggered by reforms of state-owned enterprises in the 1990s, neo-Dongbei writers are disposed to unravel dipsomania, by means of depicting a veritable cornucopia of alcoholics with various traits. In neo-Dongbei literature, the representation of alcohol consumption is inextricably intertwined with unemployment of different generations, social and labour unrest as well as unwholesomeness and self-harm triggered by copious drinking. The alcoholic representation in neo-Dongbei writing justifies a surmise made by a neo-Dongbei writer pseudonymised 贾行家 Jia Hangjia (1978-) that dipsomania in Dongbei is attributed to emotional agony.