Li Yongdong

　　College of Liberal Arts, Southwest University

　　Abstract:The horrific Nanjing Massacre is burned into the pages of war history at home and abroad. Many fiction writers have made it their subject, but literary research on the issue is comparatively weak and does not go beyond the analysis of individual works. This makes it desirable to conduct comprehensive research on the Nanjing Massacre in Chinese and overseas fiction from the perspective of the nation-state concept. Chinese, Japanese, overseas Chinese and Western writers have joined in narrating the Nanjing Massacre from different discourse standpoints. Some interpretations of the Japanese forces’ brutality have focused on the terrible slaughter, while others have focused on rape. In terms of writing style, there are two approaches: writing from the eyes of the top brass and from the eyes of the foot soldier. Chinese writers’ narratives of the massacre see it in terms of a calamity that aroused Chinese resistance. Conceptually, they differ in depicting the struggle as involving the nationalism of the whole people, class nationalism, and party political nationalism. Japanese writers’ works include faithful descriptions and historical self-examination, but also engage in the spiritual slaughter of the Chinese people. Western writers and American writers of Chinese origin write fiction imbued with religious feelings and reflections on human nature and life.Their work is however flawed by Eurocentrism; they turn the massacre into a story of the West rescuing China. In recent years, biographies of the prostitutes of the Qinhuai River and works singing the praises of foreign missionaries have been at the forefront of narratives of the Nanjing Massacre. We should take heed of this and reflect on it.

　　Keywords:Nanjing Massacre,Rape of Nanjing,fiction,nation-state