For China, this journal was born at the perfectmoment. The decade-long trauma known as the "GreatCultural Revolution" had just come to an end, and Chi-nese literature was being delivered from the influence of"ultra-leftist" ideologies. New, pent-up literary voicesbegan to make themselves heard from beneath thethawing spring soil. Almost overnight, a hundred with-ered flowers suddenly re-blossomed. Countless fine lit-erary works appeared that reflected the true lives ofpeople and eulogized the beauty to be found in humani-ty. It was like tears of morning dew breaking into sunlitsmiles. Editors of Chinese Literature, founded in the1950s as the only literary journal published in Englishand French out of China for worldwide circulation, sud-denly found their hands full coping with a dazzling out-pouring of great short stories. There were so many topublish that issues of the journal often ran out of space.Only a limited number of these masterpieces made it tothe journal, as the editors worked like bees buzzingthrough a sea of flowers. Some of the pieces drew theattention of editors of Short Story International, whoreprinted them one after another for the benefit of amuch larger audience.
Then letters began pouring into the editorial de-partment of Chinese Literature, from friends from ev-cry corner of the globe, expressing their pleasant sur-prise at the discovery of Chinese literature as a richmine of literary gems. One reader said he had thoughtthat China had nothing but ossified thoughts, but uponreading the Chinese short stories carried in this journalwas amazed by what beautiful literature writers of acountry with a 5, 000-year-old civilization were capableof creating. Tempted by these fine short stories, manyreaders have gone the extra miles to travel to China fora closer look at Chinese literature as well as the land andpeople depicted in what they had read. Many Chinesewriters have also travelled abroad to tell internationalreaders how they have come up with their captivatingstories.