C ULTURE
A
n article titled “Chinese Web Novels Help Young American
Quit Drugs” appeared in the Southern Weekly on March 16
and promptly went viral across China’s social media. It says
a young Californian, Kevin Cazad, used to do drugs to ease the pain
of a breakup, but ever since he came across a translated Chinese web
novel, Coiling Dragon (Panlong, 盘龙), on Chinese web novel trans-
lation website Wuxiaworld.com, he was “completely intoxicated” and
“totally forgot about cocaine.” “[Chinese web novels] are as addictive
as drugs but at least they won’t kill me,” Cazad was quoted as saying.
As founder of Wuxiaworld and translator of Coiling Dragon, Lai
Jingping, sees it, this novel-beats-drug story sounds somewhat self-
aggrandising. But it is undeniable that a new craze for Chinese web
novels has already swept a circle of Asian literature lovers in the Eng-
lish-reading world since late 2014, thanks to the efforts of variousChinese Online Novels
Pulp Fiction Frenzy
Chinese serialised web novels are gaining traction in the English-reading world.
Can Chinese pulp fiction enter the Western cultural market just as Japanese manga
did twenty years ago?By Yi Ziyi