Context, Method, and Vision: A Review of Zhang Songjian’s The Cold War and the Literary Imagination in Asia

Journal of Integrated Cultural Studies

JICS   Vol. 1, No. 1, 2026, pp.193-199.

Print ISSN: 3105-840X; Online ISSN: 3105-8418

Journal homepage: https://www.icsjournal.com

DOI：Https://doi.org/10.64058/JICS.26.1.18

Context, Method, and Vision: A Review of Zhang Songjian’s The Cold War and the Literary Imagination in Asia

Yan Min

Abstract: Zhang Songjian is a renowned scholar in the field of Chinese-language literary studies. In recent years, he has produced a succession of outstanding academic works, achieving notable accomplishments in the integration and innovation of texts, theory, and cultural vision. In his new book The Cold War and the Literary Imagination in Asia (2024), he once again handles a weighty subject with apparent ease, using the Cold War as context, method, and vision to deeply excavate, sort out, and discuss marginal or dual-faceted writers who exist outside the purview of Asian national literature. Grounded in solid historical materials and written with penetrating prose, the book brings back to life the creative careers of individuals who drifted between politics and literature only to be eventually submerged by history, while beneath its academic discourse there runs an undercurrent of emotional identification. Yet the book’s unique value lies even more in its attempt, by precisely grasping the literary discourses and their social connotations of various writers in a specific context, to construct a kind of spiritual poetics with a pronounced political orientation, thereby challenging our conventional understanding of the boundaries, connotations, and functions of Chinese-language literature, and suggesting possible directions for interdisciplinary research.

Keywords: Cold War; Zhang Songjian; The Cold War and the Literary Imagination in Asia

Author Biography: Yan Min, Professor, School of Literature and Communication, Huizhou University, Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Huizhou University, Research interests: World Chinese Literature. E-mail: zwym@hzu.edu.cn.

标题：语境、方法与视野——评张松建的《亚洲冷战与文学想象》

摘要：张松建是华文文学研究界的知名学者，近年来笔耕不辍，接连出了不少优秀的学术论著，在文本、理论与文化视野的融合与创新方面有所建树。新作《亚洲冷战与文学想象》中，他又一次举重若轻，以冷战为语境、方法和视野，对流离在亚洲民族国家视野之外的边缘或双栖作家进行了深入挖掘、梳理和论述。该书以扎实的史料和具有穿透力的笔触，重现了一个个流离在政治与文学领域却终被历史淹没的创作生命，在学术话语的逻辑之下隐含着情感认同的张力。但该书的独特价值还在于，研究者通过准确把握特定语境中各位作家的文学话语及其社会内涵，试图创建一种富含政治性指向的心灵诗学，并在一定程度上挑战了我们关于华文文学边界、内涵与功用的惯常理解，启迪了跨学科研究的可能方向。

关键词：冷战；张松建；《亚洲冷战与文学想象》

作者简介：颜敏，惠州学院文学与传媒学院教授，《惠州学院学报》主编。研究方向：世界华文文学。电邮：zwym@hzu.edu.cn。

 Received: 6 Jan. 2026 / Revised:2 Apr. 2026 / Accepted: 02 Apr. 2026 / Published online: 30 Apr. 2026 / Print published: 30 May 2026.