Legending in flagrante delicto: The short fiction of Can Xue

Mainland Chinese writer Can Xue (1953–) has one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary fiction. Her short pieces have been favourably compared with those of Kafka and share something of the same metamorphic transformation of the social order into something more oneiric and malleable. This article discusses the critical reception of her work that has tended to interpret her innovative narrative strategies as a response to the trauma suffered by her family during the Cultural Revolution, noting that the author herself plays down these political considerations, stressing instead the attempt to depict a singular internal world. It suggests that Gilles Deleuze’s concept of ‘legending’ provides a way of negotiating between the external socio-political contexts and the internal ‘soul worlds’ of Can Xue’s writing, and outlines the importance of the concept for a reading of short fiction in general.