Abstract： Chinese realist literature is both a product of crosscultural translations and transaction，and of continued efforts by Chinese writers to find indigenous ways to write about reality.On the one hand，China's encounter with realism and its variations，socialist realism and Magical Realism，facilitates transformations and self-rejuvenation in response to foreign stimuli.On the other hand，Chinese realist literature is historically embedded in the course of China's pursuit of modernization in the past two centuries.Literary realism in China is conceived as manifestation of certain reality which amounts to underlying pattern or inner-truth，not mere representation of life as it appears to be.

Keywords： literary realism，Magical Realism，reality，socialist realism，mythorealism，Yan Lianke

Authors： Wang Shouren is a professor at School of Foreign Studies，Nanjing University，China.His research interests are literary history and Anglo-American fiction.Liu Yang is a PhD candidate at English Department，Nanjing University.His research interest is British literature.

China's encounter with literary realism is a cross-cultural event，in the sense that etymologically，the term“realism”（现实主义）itself originated from other languages，and literary realism is an imported idea.In fact，the word“reality”（现实） itself did not appear in the Chinese vocabulary until the late 19 ^th century when it was first coined in the Japanese language and then travelled to China.Yet，the production，circulation and assessment of realist literature are historically embedded in the course of China's pursuit of modernization in the past two centuries.“Modern China has been the site of drastic contestations between indigenous innovations and foreign stimuli，radical provocations and conciliatory responses.”（Wang 1）Chinese realist literature is both a product of cross-cultural translations and transaction，and of continued efforts by Chinese writers to find indigenous ways to write about reality.

Chinese critics first used写实主义，the English equivalent of naturalism，to describe the works by Tolstoy，Balzac and Dickens.写实主义 indicates a literal and unmediated representation of reality.In 1932，Qu Qiubai，the translator of Maxim Gorky's works and once the leader of the Communist Party of China（CPC），introduced the Russian novelist as the“greatest realist artist of the new era.”In the Foreword to Selected Essays by Maxim Gorky ，Qu Qiubai observes that

Gorky shall never explain realism as“pure”objectivism....He speaks no Chinese and shall therefore never understand the word literally from its Chinese translation[写实主义] as the description of reality.（Qu 2）

高尔基是新时代的最伟大的现实主义的艺术家。……他绝不会把写实主义解释成为“纯粹的”客观主义，他不懂得中国文，他不会从现实主义realism的中文译名上望文生义的了解到这是描写现实的“写实主义”。

——瞿秋白：《高尔基论文选集·写在前面》（1932）

Qu Qiubai proposes to replace the phrase 写实主义 with 现实主义. This change of one Chinese character from 写（writing）to 现（manifesting）is significant.There is a fundamental difference between the two concepts：realism is seen as not being confined to portraying the world as it actually is，but always seeks to transcend the actuality of the world.Qu Qiubai distinguishes between two kinds of reality：one is“dying，decaying and stinky，”the other is“newly born，wholesome and complete，grown out of the old‘reality'，yet，negating the old‘reality'.”（Qu 2）Literary realism in China is conceived as manifestation of certain reality which amounts to underlying pattern or hidden truth，not mere representation of life as it appears to be.As the following part of this essay will demonstrate，the succeeding writers of realism，in their response to socialist realism and Magical Realism introduced from outside China，make indigenous innovations by way of manifesting reality in the literary texts with the change of time. Cm1J9bR+U43GY0gqrBfNBHxTmiOscGDRIyVyECvvY7FcmnIIaIoMg6mt5//8nqUF