“The Detective World” Magazine and Its Role in the Formation of a Chinese Detective

Abstract

The beginning of the 20th century in China became the flourishing of literary creativity, at the same time a huge number of translations appeared, among which translations of works in the detective genre were especially popular. Later, many translators began to write detective stories, and that was the mark of the beginning of the Chinese detective’s formation. The publishers could not ignore such a huge interest of readers. At first they published detective stories in newspaper’s pages or appendixes, and then a journal entirely devoted to the works of the detective genre — The Detective World (Zhentan shijie, 侦探 世界) was finally founded in 1923. In the
development of the journal, two periods are clearly distinguished: from 1 to 12 and from 13 to 24 issues, this division is associated with a change in the composition of the editorial board and, accordingly, editorial policy. From the 13th issue of the magazine, new headings were opened, contests were held. It housed the works of not only masters of the genre, but also those who had just started to try themselves in the detective genre. Moreover, the magazine began to publish not only works of fiction, but also articles on the theory of the detective genre, in which writers and translators tried to comprehend and systematize this genre. Despite the fact that only 24 issues
were published in one year, The Detective World magazine became a noticeable phenomenon in the literary life of the country in the 1920s and an important milestone in the development and popularization of the detective genre in China.

Keywords:

Chinese literature, Chinese literature of the 20th century, detective genre, periodicals of China, The Detective World, Shen Zhifang, Zhao Tiaokuang, Cheng Xiaoqing