THE REAL AND THE FICTIONAL EAST IN THE NOVEL “THE POPPY WAR” BY R.F. KUANG

Abstract

An article, directed at the analysis of the novel “The Poppy War” by the modern American-Asian writer R.F. Kuang, examines the author’s perception of the sociocultural realities of modern China, as well as its history. To fulfill the global goal of identifying the relationship of reality and fiction in the artistic universe of the novel, it was necessary to perform the following tasks: turning to the biographical aspect in order to comprehend the national identity of R.F. Kuang; studying of the position and role of women in Asian society, social and property stratification, racism, and the impact of the Opium Wars on Chinese society; analyzing the specifics of the interpretation of current problems’ data in the fantasy reality of the novel. Fantasy rarely becomes an object for study in the perceptual aspect of historical memory or collective trauma, now functioning as one of the main directions in modern humanitarianism; the works of R.F. Kuang have never been previously analyzed in domestic literary criticism. The author concludes that the writer deliberately places real-world issues in a fictional universe, which allows her to veiled rework current social problems, comprehend issues of memory and trauma of the Chinese people and implicitly criticize the social system.