When the focus shifts from battles to an individual's struggles
What does war mean to an individual? A very pertinent question in the context of fiction writer Xue Yiwei's five war stories, which were published in English by Chinese Literature and Culture, an English-language literary magazine jointly published in the United States by IntLingo Inc, Westbury, New York and Zilin Ltd, Guangzhou.
Along with the five stories are commentaries, mostly by foreign literary critics, who try to delve into the stories for their literary value by deconstructing them.
The five stories are about the fate of individuals. In a preface to the collection, Xue writes: "The tension between history and the individual is one of the main areas I endeavor to explore in my writing, and war offers a particular means by which to access it."
