From Tiananmen to COVID: Diasporic Witnessing and Metanarratives of Crisis
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-12-2026
Abstract
This essay examines how Chinese diasporic literature constructs a metanarrative of crisis by linking pandemic fiction with Tiananmen literature, focusing on Qiu Xiaolong's Love and Murder in the Time of COVID. It argues that both bodies of writing respond to epistemic voids and state-sanctioned forgetting by producing counter-histories that resist erasure. Tracing their discursive continuity, the essay showcases how crisis-driven narratives record trauma and imagine alternative truths, while also operating within ideological constraints that may reinforce Cold War binaries and Orientalist framings of Chinese suffering.
Recommended Citation
Liu, Anqi, "From Tiananmen to COVID: Diasporic Witnessing and Metanarratives of Crisis" (2026). Global Language Studies Faculty publications. 123, Scholarly and Creative Work from DePauw University.
https://scholarship.depauw.edu/mlang_facpubs/123