Going Global in Person, Journeying in Spirit: Suosalang and the Global Language of the Chinese Epic | “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars” (Episode 6)

Going Global in Person, Journeying in Spirit: Suosalang and the Global Language of the Chinese Epic | “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars” (Episode 6)

The sixth session of “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars” was held online on April 26, 2026. Organized by the World Literature Union and the Xuemo Foundation, the event brought together scholars, sinologists, and readers from China, the United States, Canada, and elsewhere.

Xuemo and moderator Yanjin Chen were joined by Professor Jiexiong Yan of Central South University, Professor Riccardo Moratto of Tongji University, and Associate Professor Min Yang of Bowling Green State University. Their discussion examined the ideas behind Xuemo’s eight-volume epic, Suosalang, its literary form, and its place in world literature.

Xuemo on International Awards: Participation Matters More Than Prizes

Xuemo had recently returned from the NYC Big Book Award ceremony. At the beginning of the event, he spoke about the experience and said he attached less importance to prizes themselves than to the opportunity to participate.

By attending the NYC Big Book Award, the Oxford Literary Festival, the Guadalajara International Book Fair, and other events, he said, he had gained a closer understanding of how publishing and literary institutions operate outside China. Such participation also allowed more publishers, writers, and readers abroad to encounter his books and ideas.

Xuemo described American literary events as well organized and closely connected to the publishing market. If Chinese writers wish to reach international readers, he argued, they cannot remain solely within overseas Chinese communities. They must take part regularly in established literary and publishing networks.

He called this approach “going global in person.” Physical presence, he said, gives writers a practical understanding of the people, institutions, and conventions that shape international publishing.

Award for Wild Fox Ridge

The prize recognized the English edition of Xuemo’s Wild Fox Ridge. Chen briefly introduced the novel, which has been described as marking a return to an earlier phase of Xuemo’s writing.

The discussion then turned to Suosalang, a work that Chen described as a milestone in his career. In her view, the epic marked his development from a writer chiefly associated with contemporary China into one whose work addresses readers and traditions beyond a single country.

Jiexiong Yan: Cultural Synthesis and Archetypal Writing

Professor Jiexiong Yan of Central South University delivered a keynote address titled “The Convergence of Chinese Civilization and the Archetype of the Epic.” He described Suosalang as a work that would, in his view, find a lasting place in world literature and called it “the first modern epic in the Chinese language.”

Yan organized his reading around five features of the work.

First, he identified in the book an ancient epic pattern of departure and return. Second, he noted that its expansive narrative retains the measured pace and sense of immediacy associated with classical epic. Third, he argued that the work brings together elements of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, with particular attention to the Buddhist principle that appearances arise from the mind. This emphasis can also be seen in the epic’s extensive portrayal of inner states.

Fourth, Yan said that Xuemo places modern language, reflections on life, and contemporary accounts of human behavior within an ancient epic structure. It is this combination, he argued, that makes Suosalang a modern epic. Finally, he described the scale and freedom of its prose as an expression of what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, giving voice to experiences that extend beyond the individual writer.

During his conversation with Xuemo, Yan asked about the nature of the planet Suosalang, the relationship between the epic’s two narrative lines, the artistic sources behind the work, the combination of archaic thought with modern elements, and the meaning of eternity within the book.

Xuemo said that Suosalang should not be understood as an invention detached from experience. It grew out of many years of spiritual practice and close attention to life. He described his method as open, observant, and self-forgetting, with the writing arising as an image of a particular inner state.

He also said that he had tried to address what he regarded as weaknesses in the characterization of earlier epics. The spiritual life of his characters, he explained, draws on the traditions of Eastern thought while reaching beyond any single doctrine. He deliberately wrote in a contemporary idiom that readers from different cultures could understand.

For Xuemo, eternity in Suosalang does not mean endless chronological time. It refers to the completion of an inner life and serves as an image of what human civilization might seek to become.

Riccardo Moratto and Min Yang: Cultural Encounter and the Disappearing Author

Professor Riccardo Moratto of Tongji University asked how Suosalang brings together different cultural and philosophical traditions.

Xuemo replied that, by the time he wrote the epic, these traditions no longer felt like separate materials borrowed from outside. They had become part of his own intellectual and spiritual life. The result, he said, was not a collection of labeled influences but a single body of experience.

He described each of his books as a record of a particular stage in his development. Conversations with scholars and readers, he added, continue to shape and enlarge the world from which he writes.

Associate Professor Min Yang of Bowling Green State University approached the work through the question of authorship. She asked how a writer can seek to dissolve the self through spiritual practice while constructing individual selves through fictional narrative.

Xuemo said that he had spent several years deliberately breaking down the recognizable style and authorial identity he had built. Only when that identity receded, he said, could his characters begin to live independently on the page.

When writers loosen their attachment to the limited self, he argued, their work begins to grow more naturally. It may then speak to readers across racial and cultural boundaries because it draws on experiences not confined to the writer’s personal identity. He attributed much of his readership to this effort to let the characters and their world emerge without constant authorial control.

Literature as a Meeting Place

In his closing remarks, Xuemo said that each discussion with scholars brought different intellectual worlds into contact and enriched everyone involved. He hoped that Suosalang and the continuing forum series would allow literature to connect people, encourage fellow feeling, and help societies look beyond cultural divisions.

Selected discussions from the series are expected to appear in the Hong Kong-based journal World Literature. Plans are also underway to translate and publish them in English, making the exchanges available to scholars and readers outside China.