Library

The two pillars of Chen Yizhi's poetic art are rural and classical. When commentators mention local poetry, they naturally think of the works of Wu Sheng, Xiang Yang and others. However, China's vast territory and diverse folk customs make it impossible to go beyond the countryside. With his ancestral home in mainland China and growing up in Taiwan, Chen Yizhi, like many second-generation writers from other provinces, has a dual sense of locality - a complex of intertwining the mainland and the island. On the one hand, he identifies with the life experience of growing up on an island; on the other hand, he has a geographical, historical, and cultural nostalgia for the hometown of his parents and ancestors on the mainland. This kind of nostalgia is certainly different from what writers of my generation embrace, because it has no personal memory, only knowledge of history and place, and the influence of my parents, so it is romantic and imaginative.

The author consciously integrates the reality of the countryside with the classical tradition. The prose works rooted in the hometown of Taiwan show the beauty of caring about the local reality and inheriting the classical rhythm, and also show his identification with cultural China. The author's prose often reveals a sense of China and Taiwan, allowing people to fully appreciate the power of the invisible ties between land and blood. There are many beautiful words in the book, and the whole book is full of a lyrical tone.