IN the coffee shop of the Beijing Landmark Hotel where he lived until early this year, the bad boy of Chinese literature chain smokes and rues what happens to rebel writers as they head into middle age. At 42, Wang Shuo has spent two decades exposing the underbelly of the new China, turning his cool mocking gaze on communist officialdom, student dissidents, the academic establishment and patriotic fervour of any kind.
'I'm an old hooligan,' Wang says, smirking. 'I didn't give myself that name, but now that everyone calls me that it would be rude not to respond.' The mainland literary scene has become more adventurous since the 1980s when Wang gained instant notoriety writing in gutter slang to portray the ordinary lives of China's urban underclass. When literature to serve the people still prevailed, Wang was luring readers with his tales of prostitutes, conmen, slackers, charming delinquents and the nice girls who were drawn to them.
These days the 'hooligan literature' Wang personified has fallen out of fashion. The new generation of young writers who are breaking the mainland's taboos prefer the rarefied Western term 'alternative literature'.
The fact is that it's hard to maintain your status as a hip counter-culture spokesman when you are a top-selling author. Wang, who has been married for 10 years and has a 12-year-old daughter, says he gave up drugs long ago and lately liver problems have forced him to quit drinking. He's outgrown the Beijing bar scene which, he says, is full of people who seem incredibly young.
Every few months Wang runs afoul of official censors, his projects banned for undermining the moral fabric of society or because they are seen to be obscene or pornographic. But though Wang still sees himself as an outsider among the pompous literary elite, he is a mainstream celebrity. In addition to 20 novels, Wang is a film producer. He's written a slew of short stories in every genre, as well as TV series and screenplays. He now uses his publishing clout to help promote virtually unknown young extreme writers, such as Gou.zi or 'Dog', who writes about the supremacy of beer.
'I'm still not what you'd call a respectable writer,' says Wang, whom Western critics have dubbed 'China's Jack Kerouac'. 'In my writing I'm using less slang, and it's strange, but I am turning to more serious subjects. I'm not going to live forever so if I want to say something I'm just going to say it, I care less and less about what will be acceptable to anyone else.' For all his posturing about growing old and mellowing, Wang continues to infuriate scholarly writers with his gleeful habit of picking fights with other authors. Most recently, in the China Youth Daily, Wang blasted Hong Kong's 'kung fu king' Jin Yong, saying his writing was so bad he had to 'hold his nose' while reading the novels. China's media reported the attack, setting off a flurry of debate.
