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Journalism of Courage
At 24, Guo Jingming is China8217;s best selling novelist
The most successful writer in China today isn8217;t Gao Xingjian, the winner of the 2000 Nobel Prize, or even Jiang Rong, the author of the best-selling novel Wolf Totem. It8217;s 24-year-old Guo Jingming, a pop idol whose cross-dressing, image-obsessed persona has made him a sensation. Thousands of teenagers flock to Guo8217;s signing sessions. The author posts pictures of himself half-naked in the shower, in his underwear or swathed in Dolce 038; Gabbana accessories and Louis XIV-style shirts.
8220;My main goal is to tell the story well and have everyone like it,8221; Guo said.
The Chinese government mostly ignores Guo and the other post-8217;80s writers.
I met with Guo last summer in the offices of Ke Ai a homophone of the Chinese word for 8220;cute8221;, the entertainment company he established in 2004 to produce teenage literary magazines like I5land and Top Novel. An hour before the interview, I had phoned to ask if I could take his picture. He politely refused, saying an hour wasn8217;t long enough to prepare.
Guo was born to an engineer father and a bank clerk mother who encouraged him to write. A short version of City of Fantasy was later published in a national magazine and went on to sell more than 1.5 million copies in book form.
Guo8217;s second novel, Never Flowers in Never Dreams, a love triangle featuring harmless forays into the Beijing underworld sold 600,000 copies in its first month. Soon after, he was accused of plagiarizing the novel from Zhuang Yu8217;s In and Out of the Circle. In 2006, a court ordered him to pay 25,000 to Zhuang Yu and to apologise. Guo paid the judgment but refused to apologise.
While the case was still in process, Guo produced a musical album, Lost, about young love. Last year, his novel Cry Me a River sold a million copies in 10 days.
-AVENTURINA KING LAT-WP
