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"Telling Details offers nothing less than a reconceptualizing of Chinese literary modernity, bringing together late Imperial fiction, canonical twentieth-century authors, and globally recognized contemporary writers under the umbrella of the "fiction of details" as China’s distinctive contribution to world literature. From the almost shocking modernity of the Ming Dynasty Jin Ping Mei (arguably the world’s first modern novel) to the mid-1900s stories of Eileen Chang to the scandalous "untranslatable" works of contemporary author Jia Pingwa, the fiction of details decentres plot in favour of "telling details" that reveal psychological depth and society’s political unconscious through a distinctively Chinese literary aesthetic that has renewed itself, very much in conversation with world literary developments, from late Imperial times to the present. This rich and unprecedented study will provoke readers and scholars to further reading and new insights for years to come."

-Jason McGrath, Professor of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities, USA

"Telling Details takes a close look at the "fiction of detail" by defining an exquisitely aesthetic aspect in traditional and modern Chinese fiction. Xiao delves into how and why the novelist lingers and elaborates on sensuous and allegorical details and articulate hidden significant human experiences. With its unique perspective, this wonderful book has potential to generate much discussion on visual minutae and and fabrics in fiction and film."

- Ban Wang, William Haas Endowed Chair Professor in Chinese Studies in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and Comparative Literature, Standford University, USA

"In Telling Details, Jiwei Xiao boldly reads Chinese fiction from the 17th century to the present as representative of a modern(ist) style that focuses on the representation of detail. With the critical flair of the true comparatist, she perceptively connects the Chinese novels with works from other national traditions, arguing eloquently and convincingly in support of their status as "world literature." This book has much to offer for students of fiction, regardless of their regional specialization."

-Michel Hockx, Professor of Chinese Literature, University of Notre Dame, USA

"Uniquely bridging the fields of Late Imperial and Modern and Contemporary Chinese Literary Studies, Telling Details should become required reading in graduate classes on Chinese literary modernity, and select chapters could be assigned in undergraduate classes along with selections from primary texts."

-Paola Iovene, University of Chicago, MCLC Resource Center, USA

"The book is meticulously edited and elegantly written. More broadly, it makes a timely, intriguing, and invigorating contribution to literary criticism and cultural theory in a global frame."

-Sheldon Lu, UC Davis, Rocky Mountain Review, Spring 2022, pp. 156-8

"And yet one can hope that readings like these will inspire undergraduate as well as graduate students in English and in comparative literary and cultural studies, along with their classmates in Chinese studies, to follow Xiao into this rich vein of Chinese literary life, perhaps then becoming the eagle-eyed, culturally competent young writers that anglophone publishers and our society at large most definitely need. They may wish to further concretize and trace out the concept of xijie xiaoshuo—or not; but there is every chance that they will find their experience of life and literary language has been deepened and widened by these essays’ exploration of “telling details”—in all their luminosity, indirection and, as Jia Pingwa’s pugnacious moniker puts it, “ugly stone” obduracy.”

Karen Kingsbury, Professor at Chatham University, Journal of Asian Studies, 83.1, 2024

“Telling Details is original in concept, erudite in execution, and convincing in the arguments it makes about the inestimable role of tiny things within grand texts. Quite appropriately, given its focus on the detail as a source of aesthetic pleasure, it is also a beautifully written book. Xiao’s skills as a close reader offer many keen moments of revelation, at the same time as her determination to read the xijie xiaoshuo across the centuries makes her work a rare example in Chinese literary studies of a monograph that makes pre-modern and modern texts really talk to one another. And there is a satisfying irony in the way that Xiao seeks to turn the detail, seemingly so small and insignificant, into the lever which might finally propel Chinese literature onto its proper place on the world stage.”

Margaret Hillenbrand, Professor at the University of Oxford: Published in CLEAR (Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, and Reviews, 45, 2023)

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