Novelist Zhang Guangtian explores human yearnings in new trilogy

Nearly 100 book fans, including university faculty members, students and cultural workers, gathered on Saturday afternoon at All Sages Bookstore for the Beijing leg of Zhang Guangtian's book launch tour.

Hosted by Liu Suli, founder of the bookstore, the event kicked off with a chant accompanied by a guitar by 60-year-old Zhang, writer, playwright and musician. Formerly a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, he once headed the research direction of methodological narrative and performance.

Published by Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, Zhang's new fiction trilogy consists of three full-length novels — Meifang, Nanrongjia De Yue (The Story of Nanrong Yue), and Lairi Kezhui (Chasing the Days to Come) — with a combined word count of 1.5 million.

Zhang explained that the trilogy is titled "The Eternal Light", because it explores many thought-provoking themes, and something that never fades through all the works.

He wrote in the preface to his novel: "I yearn for goodness, yet I am not goodness itself; I yearn for benevolence, yet I am not benevolence itself."

Speaking at the event, Zhang said: "These books are all born out of my yearnings. That is why this book launch tour is called 'The Long Awaited Place'. A writer need not be a great thinker or litterateur. A writer is simply someone filled with yearning. He has a profound inner aspiration and brings this longing to the public through writing."

Zhang's book launch tour has recently concluded in Shanghai and will continue at CITIC Bookstore (Sanlitun) and SKP Rendez-Vous Bookstore in Beijing throughout November.

Wu Kun, deputy director of Sichuan Literature and Art Publishing House, once commented that Zhang's novels have always been exploring a secret path in contemporary Chinese literature. They are like an undying light, shaping a distinctive Chinese narrative from beginning to end.