Root-seeking literature is a literary form with the theme of "cultural root-seeking". In the mid-1980s, there was an upsurge of "cultural root-seeking" in China literary world. Writers began to explore traditional consciousness and national cultural psychology, and their creation was called "root-seeking literature". 1985, Han Shaogong took the lead in proposing in a programmatic paper "The Roots of Literature": "Literature has roots, and the roots of literature should be deeply rooted in the cultural soil of national traditions." He proposed to "transcend the real world and base on reality at the same time, revealing some mysteries that determine the development of the country and the survival of mankind." Under this theory, writers began to create, which is called "root-seeking school" in theoretical circles.

Edit the representative work of this paragraph

Acheng: "Three Kings" (Chess King, Tree King, king of the children)

Han Shaogong: Dad, dad and girl.

Zheng Yi: Laojing.

Jia Pingwa: Shangzhou Series

Wang Anyi's Bao Xiaozhuang

Li Rui Hou tu series

Mo Yan's Red Sorghum Series

Although under the banner of "cultural root-seeking", these root-seeking writers can't agree on what "culture" is. Most writers choose a region that they are most familiar with as the basic point of cutting into the cultural level. From this perspective, we can divide "root-seeking literature" into two major areas: "urban culture root-seeking" and "rural culture root-seeking".