Ordinario versus eroico: il racconto di guerra alternativo di Zhang Ailing

Many Chinese literary voices of the first half of the 20th century diverge from the thought and style imposed as mainstream literature and passed down by the Maoist canon as the sole expression of the period, temporarily obscuring its actual polyphony. One of the most powerful voices of diversity is that of a woman writer, Zhang Ailing 张爱玲, who conquered Shanghai's literary scene during the Japanese occupation of the city (1941-1945), whose works were banned in Mainland China during the Maoist era and now enjoy a hyper-canonical status as well as a wide popular appeal. Zhang started her literary career in a troubled period of transition towards modernity, devastated by war, marked by uncertainty and extreme ideological oppositions. She chose to desert the world of heroes, battlefields, patriotism, and high ideals of the mainstream discourse, and to focus instead on the eternal and universal fragilities of human nature, as they emerge in the daily struggle of ordinary people coping with epochal changes. In her alternative tale of the period, war is usually kept in the background as a heavy shadow cast on people’s lives. One of the few exceptions is the essay Jin yu lu 烬余录 (From the Ashes), in which Zhang recounts her direct experience of the Japanese attack on Hong Kong in 1941, presenting a kaleidoscopic display of human reactions, behaviours, and emotions, which is one of the most touching, albeit unconventional, representations of the trauma and folly of war.