Xue Yiwei's stories shift from battles to one's struggles

Xue Yiwei. [Photo provided to China Daily]

What does war mean to an individual? A very pertinent question in the context of fiction writer Xue Yiwei's five war stories, which were published in English by Chinese Literature and Culture, an English-language literary magazine jointly published in the United States by IntLingo Inc, Westbury, New York and Zilin Ltd, Guangzhou.

Along with the five stories are commentaries, mostly by foreign literary critics, who try to delve into the stories for their literary value by deconstructing them.

The five stories are about the fate of individuals. In a preface to the collection, Xue writes: "The tension between history and the individual is one of the main areas I endeavor to explore in my writing, and war offers a particular means by which to access it."

In The Veteran, the hero identified only as The First Lieutenant is able to relive only his part in the war. The trauma of war has upset his balance of past, present and future. Experience is no longer an arch through which things gleam but a solid wall blocking anything else from coming through. The past has taken over the individual.

God's Chosen Photographer reflects absurdity and irony where the hero, who is mad about photography which he has learned from a foreigner, lies with his camera when he cheats the public with his picture of what is supposed to be "real" but is definitely not. His career starts as a war photographer, who is supposed to seek the meaning of life using his camera, but he endeavors to do so in vain.

In Winning the First Battle, the eldest son of a wealthy landowner is being groomed to eventually take his father's place. However, the son rebels against his father and leaves home to join the revolutionary Red Army.

As he gets involved more deeply in the struggle, he rises to become a general. But with the revolution over, he now looks for deeper meaning in life and decides that he must reconcile with his father. Adhering to the centuries-old tradition of filial piety, he also wants to take care of his aged father.