This book examines the work of a group of young avant garde fiction writers who made their rebellious appearance on the Chinese literary scene from the mid-1980s onwards. Exhibiting strategies of anti-mainstream, anti-paradigmatic discourse these writers debunked the traditional literary conventions of a hitherto very closed Chinese society using literary modes such as metafiction, narrative strategy and postmodernist language. This book will help its readers to understand why the Chinese avant garde were so closely related to Chinese politics, and how they played a role in bringing social and cultural change in China. With this in mind the book will appeal to students and scholars of Chinese and comparative literature as well as those interested in Chinese society more widely.