Ming Dong Gu is Associate Professor of Chinese and Comparative Literature and Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of Texas, Dallas. He is the author of Chinese Theories of Reading and Writing: A Route to Hermeneutics and Open Poetics, also published by SUNY Press.

• AbstractIntroduction: Theory of Fiction: A Chinese Perspective Internationalization of Chinese FictionA Critique of RealismA Critique of HistoryA Critique of the Poetry-Fiction DivideObjectives of InquiryScope of InquiryAssumptions and Methodology1. Chinese Notions of Fiction Chinese Xiaoshuo and Western "Fiction"From "Xiaoshuo" to XiaoshuoThe Continuity of Fictionality in XiaoshuoThe Intrinsic Nature of XiaoshuoThe Problem of Self-Conscious Fictionalization2. The Nature of (Chinese) Fiction A Definition of Fiction Fictionality: the Conceptual Core of XiaoshuoA Definition of Pure FictionIntrinsic Reasons for the Rise of FictionHistorical and Narrative InertiaFrom Storytelling to Fictional Art3. The Aesthetic Turn in Chinese Fiction The Initial Turn to Fictionality in Early XiaoshuoThe Turn to Realism and InwardnessThe Turn to Multiplicity in the Full-length NovelThe Drive toward Pure FictionA Change in Model for Fiction WritingThe Linguistic Turn to Fiction as Verbal Art4. The Poetic Nature of Chinese Fiction The Lyric Unconscious of Chinese Fiction Poeticization of Prose FictionThe Rise of Poetic FictionIntrinsic Poetic Qualities in FictionA Definition of Poetic FictionLyrical Realism and Mythical RealismAesthetic Suggestiveness: Hallmark of Fictional Art5. The Art of the Jin Ping Mei: Poetics of Pure Fiction A Self-Conscious Turn to Pure FictionA Novelistic Conception of WeavingCreative Impulse and Motivation for Fiction-MakingThe Invention of Characters and PlotA Disseminative Paradigm of Reading/Writing The Poetics of FabricationA Novel of Multiple Dimensions6. The Art of the Honloumeng: Poetic Fiction and Open Fiction The Ontology of Representation The Epistemology of RepresentationCreative Vision: Openness of FictionDreams and the Making of Poetic FictionThe Poetic Unconscious and Poetics of OpennessA Writing Model of Open Fiction7. Theory of Fiction: A Chinese System A Synthetic Overview Genesis: Lyrical and Psychological RiseOntology: Being in Nonbeing or Real in UnrealEpistemology: Make-believe or Taking the Unreal as RealCreative Conception: Many-in-One TotalityModel of Writing: Linguistic DisseminationA Definition of Open FictionModes of Representation: Kaleidoscopic NarrationTheory of Reading: Open HermeneuticsConclusion: Toward a Transcultural Theory of Fiction Conceptual Roots of Sameness and DifferenceMimetic Dogma and Chinese DissentConceptual Basis for a Transcultural Fiction TheoryFiction as a Linguistic Representation of the OneNotesSelected BibliographyIndex