A New Sight on the Study of Modern Chinese Literature

During the period from May 4th Movement to the early 1950s, Chinese authors wrote a large number of Chinese literature in foreign countries. These Chinese literature have become an extension of Chinese modern and contemporary literature. However, for a long time, the academic community in mainland China have not integrated these literature into the research field of modern and contemporary Chinese literature, but generally classified most of the articles into foreign Chinese literature, and this constrained the breadth and depth for the study and research of modern and contemporary Chinese literature. From the historical point of view and objective historical facts, the foreign Chinese articles of this period has indisputable Chinese literary attributes, and can be regarded as the “foreign branch” developed by the “main stream” of Chinese modern and contemporary literature on a transnational basis. Due to special historical reasons, the foreign Chinese literature of this period has the characteristics of “double belonging”, that is, they belong to the “overseas Chinese literature” of modern and contemporary Chinese literature, and on the other hand belong to the “Chinese literature” in the field of overseas Chinese literature. From the perspective of national boundaries and subject classification, integrating the foreign Chinese literature by Chinese authors into the research field of modern and contemporary Chinese literature can provide a new research horizon and open up new research space for Chinese modern and contemporary literature.