Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.3, 2025

Urban Legend, a Corner of History and Nanjing Experience—Notes on The Garden of the Qu Family

(Abstract)

Guo Bingru

Urban history presents the city’s character and image, and expresses the history of the nation-state. In The Garden of the Qu Family, Ye Zhaoyan constructs the basic narrative framework of local society around a block, connecting the vicissitudes of China’s 70 years of history with urban legends, showing the richness of historical details. Using the writing method of “collective biography,” by interconnecting the relationships among characters, Ye stitches together fragmented history, and presents the overall trend of historical development. The Garden of the Qu Family provides a unique Nanjing experience for historical writing and urban narrative, and also provides us with a useful perspective to discuss the dialectical relationship between localism and Chineseness in urban literature with the help of “local knowledge.”