Ties that blind

IT BEGAN AS a genteel chat about literature between German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Wolfgang Kubin, a professor of Chinese in Bonn. The kind of thing that might appeal to a handful of specialists.

Yet Kubin's opinions were dynamite on the mainland. Since the communist revolution in 1949 China had had no literary voice, said the prominent sinologist and literary expert, who is also a published poet. Works by some of the best-known - such as Mian Mian, author of Candy, or Wei Hui, Shanghai Baby - were 'rubbish'. Chinese writers were too timid to stand up to a repressive regime.

Most seriously, contemporary writers were isolated from the global literary mainstream by their inability to speak a foreign language. 'I think that's why there haven't been any great writers since 1949,' said 61-year-old Kubin.

By contrast, celebrated pre-1949 authors such as Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang), Lu Xun, Lin Yutang and Hu Shi were multilingual. Lambasting novelists, Kubin praised only a handful of mainland poets, among them exile Bei Dao, Ouyang Jianghe and Xichuan.

His comments were picked up in mid-December by mainland media - the Chongqing Morning Post ran a headline: 'German professor says all Chinese literature is rubbish!'. Newspaper columnists, writers, academics, publishers and the public have been furiously debating whether Kubin is right. According to an informal poll by the mainland's most popular internet portal, sohu.com, 85 per cent of people say he is.

Even the mainstream media, tightly controlled by Party censors, agreed - at least partially. 'Kubin's criticism of the deficiencies of Chinese literature is a good dose of medicine and a wake-up call,' the Guangzhou Daily said in an editorial.