https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13m2WnF8Q8YMxt9SAYotg6ysFoB_Zj3at?usp=sharing
Such a sharp contrast between rural and urban attitudes toward individualization is further reinforced by an analysis of the individual in contemporary Chinese literature. The lonesome atmosphere repeatedly evoked by urban authors like Chen Ran seems extremely pale next to the forceful image of Wolf Totem in depictions of nomadic Inner Mongolia. Wedell-Wedellsborg’s chapter on literary analysis captures this contrast and encourages readers to contemplate its origin. In Yan Yunxiang’s own words, “the prolonged rural–urban dual structure in Chinese socialism, which made rural residents second-class citizens and deprived them of most of the social welfare entitlements enjoyed by urban residents, effectively made Chinese villagers into a proletariat who, to borrow from Marx, have nothing to lose but their chains” (ibid, p. 33) (book review, by Danning Wang, The China Quarterly, 207, September 2011, pp. 729–731)
