To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, People's Literature Publishing House has launched a set of four-volume books, a series entitled 100 Short Literary Classics for the Party's 100 Years.
The series contains 100 short stories, novellas, essays and nonfictional works by 100 writers, that can mark the CPC's path to glory in the last 100 years. To guarantee the quality of the books, the publishing house invited experts who have closely followed the development of Chinese contemporary literature to choose profound works with high artistic value.
Among the experts were He Shaojun, vice director to the Chinese Association of Contemporary Literature; Li Yunlei, associate editor of the literary monthly Xiaoshuo Xuankan (Selected Stories) and Cong Zhichen, associate professor of Chinese language and literature at Peking University. The 100 works by writers, including not only late masters like Lu Xun and Mao Dun but also living writers like Wang Anyi and Chi Zijian, are divided into four volumes according to historical periods: The time before the founding of new China, the time from Oct 1, 1949 to the end of 1978, and the time since the reform and opening-up.
The selected works, comprising nearly 2 million words, reflect from different perspectives how Chinese people of different ethnicities, led by the Party, achieved independence, liberation and prosperity. They also display the historical development of Chinese contemporary literature in the time of the Party. In order to meet the needs of young readers, the publishing house has also launched digital versions of the books on Amazon reading device Kindle, the reading app of WeChat and other online platforms.
