UC Riverside

This dissertation presents a comparative study of the modern Italian writer Italo Calvino (1923-1985) and the modern Chinese writer Wang Xiaobo (1952-1997). It divides each writer’s career into three stages—early, middle, and late—and highlights one shared literary characteristic from each stage of their creative development. These parallels serve as a foundation for exploring Wang Xiaobo’s admiration for Calvino’s work, particularly his alignment with the five literary values articulated in Six Memos for the Next Millennium (1988). Building on the comparative overview of the two authors’ literary careers, this dissertation applies Calvino’s five literary values—lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity—to a close reading and analysis of Wang Xiaobo’s fiction and essays. Through this approach, the dissertation also seeks to interpret Wang Xiaobo’s literary stance and creative attitude through the lens of these values. This dissertation offers several contributions to the study of Wang Xiaobo. First, it clarifies the approximate time of his reception of Six Memos, demonstrating that he only read the collection near the end of his life, and thus his literary works were not directly influenced by the five literary values articulated in the book. Second, by comparing the life trajectories and creative phases of Calvino and Wang Xiaobo, the dissertation offers an explanation for Wang’s intellectual affinity with Calvino’s ideas. Finally, while previous scholarship has primarily focused on lightness in analyzing Wang Xiaobo’s work, this study expands upon that research by applying all five of Calvino’s literary values in detailed textual analysis. In doing so, it not only provides a new framework for understanding Wang Xiaobo’s narrative strategies—especially his unique representations of the Cultural Revolution and his innovative uses of perspective and structure in fiction—but also offers new insights into his essays, which articulate a strong critique of authoritarianism and a defiant anti-Cultural Revolution attitude.