Beyond Magical Realism: David Hogsette Proposes “Xuemo’s Spiritual Realism” as a New Critical Paradigm | Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars (Episode 22)

Beyond Magical Realism: David Hogsette Proposes “Xuemo’s Spiritual Realism” as a New Critical Paradigm | Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars (Episode 22)

The twenty-second session of “Xuemo in Dialogue with International Scholars,” organized by the World Literature Union and the Xuemo Foundation, was held online on the evening of August 16, 2026. The forum took as its theme “Toward Xuemo’s Spiritual Realism: Metanarrative, Polyphony, and the New Historical Novel.” The featured speaker was Professor David Hogsette of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China, who joined the writer Xuemo in a cross-cultural dialogue. More than 20 scholars and students from China, the United States, Singapore, Poland, Spain, Canada, Norway, and other countries participated online, together with more than 200 readers worldwide.

From Magical Realism to Spiritual Realism

Hogsette opened with close textual analyses of Curses of the Kingdom of Xixia, published in Chinese in 2010 and in English in 2023, and Wild Fox Ridge, published in Chinese in 2014 and in English in 2024. He argued that these two novels mark a shift in Xuemo’s writing from the realism of the Desert Trilogy toward a more complex narrative mode.

Hogsette reviewed the critical terms that have been applied to writing of this kind, ranging from “magical realism” to “divine realism.” He argued that many such concepts are grounded in a binary framework inherited from Western secularism, one that presumes an opposition between the natural and the supernatural. Within this framework, narrators often respond to supernatural phenomena with surprise or feel compelled to explain how seemingly incompatible realities can coexist.

Hogsette emphasized that this contradiction does not exist in Xuemo’s spiritual realism. Xuemo’s narrators encounter deities, reincarnated souls, and supernatural phenomena without surprise and do not regard them as violations of natural law. The narrative world accepts the integration of the natural and the supernatural and the complementarity of science and religion. Crucially, Xuemo himself believes in the reality of the spiritual world he depicts. This distinguishes his work from forms of magical realism in which supernatural elements may function primarily as literary techniques or imaginative constructions. Hogsette argued that spiritual realism therefore offers a critical framework for understanding religious and transcendent writing in contemporary Chinese literature.

The Writer Responds: Inner Strength and Belief in a State of No-Self

Despite being unwell amid a demanding schedule of appearances at the Shanghai Book Fair and other events, Xuemo joined the forum and expressed strong agreement with Hogsette’s analysis. “Professor Hogsette is remarkable,” he said. “He has discovered many of the central secrets that critics have overlooked.” Xuemo explained that in the culture of western China in which he grew up, the marvelous was part of everyday life. “I even believed Journey to the West was true,” he said.

Xuemo identified “belief” as the core of spiritual realism. Magical realism, he suggested, is a matter of technique, a product of the writer’s artistic conception; spiritual realism is a way, grounded in the writer’s faith. By the time he wrote Curses of the Kingdom of Xixia, he had undergone 20 years of spiritual practice while completing the Desert Trilogy. The individual self, he said, had begun to dissolve as he entered a holistic state of consciousness characterized by the unity of humanity and the cosmos. In such a state, writing no longer arises from deliberate construction but pours forth spontaneously. He recalled visiting the Vajravarahi Cave, where he saw stupas collapsed by an earthquake and fragments of surviving texts. The souls, cries, and energies of the Xixia past, he said, entered his life as real presences. “I could see them and hear them. If I did not believe, I would never write them. Once I write something, I believe it is true.”

For Xuemo, this “belief” is not merely assent to religious doctrine but an uncompromising fidelity to lived experience. He argued that spiritual realism can be more real than conventional realism because it reaches structures shared at the deepest levels of the human mind. Readers who follow the path of Khyungpo Naljor in The Undying Diamond Heart, he suggested, may gain the same kind of spiritual strength. This inward force, in his view, enables works of spiritual realism to cross cultural boundaries and speak directly to the human heart.

Metafiction, Polyphony, and Historical Truth

Hogsette’s second major argument concerned what he described as the metanarrative polyphony of Xuemo’s fiction. He noted Xuemo’s accomplished use of metafictional techniques: citing historical documents such as The Amdo Political and Religious History and The Timely Pearl for Han and Tibetan, employing the motif of a discovered manuscript, and even introducing a Peking University professor who authenticates inscriptions on a cave wall. Such devices deliberately remind readers that the text before them is constructed. Yet this self-reflexivity does not diminish the novels’ credibility. Instead, through a form of scholarly framing reminiscent of The Lord of the Rings or The Castle of Otranto, it lends the fictional narrative a dimension of religious authentication and historical depth.

Even more distinctive, Hogsette argued, is Xuemo’s polyphonic narration. In Curses of the Kingdom of Xixia, Ajiqiong and Xueyu’er share the act of narration; in Wild Fox Ridge, the polyphony expands to more than a dozen summoned spirits, including Muyu Mei, Dazui Ge, and Huang Shashen. For Hogsette, these seemingly chaotic, contradictory, and inconsistent perspectives work to deconstruct conventional historical writing. “They remind us that history is, in essence, a story compiled by historians. To understand a complex world, we must gather and analyze multiple narratives.”

Xuemo responded that this polyphony arises naturally from a state of “no-self.” When the writer’s individual consciousness dissolves, he said, the author is no longer the “creator” of the story but becomes instead a “guardian of the forest” or a “summoner of spirits.” Writing becomes an act of waiting for the souls to flow through the tip of the pen and perform in their own voices. Xuemo compared this state in some respects to Dostoevsky’s creative experience, while distinguishing his own “collective stream of consciousness” as arising from a spacious, tranquil stillness that moves beyond the individual streams of consciousness associated with Proust and Joyce.

Xuemo also addressed the self-mockery and deliberate erosion of narrative authority surrounding the figure named “Xuemo,” who functions as a primary narrator in the novels. He described this figure as having three dimensions: the “writer Xuemo,” a tranquil narrator; the “worldly Xuemo,” acutely aware of readers’ needs; and the transcendent “spiritual Xuemo.” These three identities move freely through the text. At times the narrator speaks at length; at others he remains a silent observer. Together, they constitute a sustained reflection on the complexity of the narrative process.

Constructing a Distinctively Chinese Narrative Discourse

Hogsette’s research does more than characterize Xuemo’s individual literary style. It also represents an important attempt to consider how contemporary Chinese literature might move beyond dependence on Western theoretical frameworks and develop a critical discourse grounded in its own cultural and literary experience.

Near the end of his presentation, Hogsette introduced the dimension of the “new historical novel.” He argued that Xuemo’s works depart from the tradition of grand epic narrative and turn instead toward local histories and individual lives obscured by official historical accounts. Time did not permit a fuller discussion, but the topic generated considerable interest among the participating scholars. Xuemo described the question as highly valuable and proposed a separate seminar devoted to exploring it in depth. Hogsette readily agreed, noting that the opportunity for a scholar to discuss such questions directly with the author is rare.

Understanding Reality Through Belief

The two-and-a-half-hour discussion brought different languages, cultures, and academic perspectives into conversation. Moving from Hogsette’s rigorous analysis through Western narratology to Xuemo’s reflections on lived experience informed by Eastern wisdom, the dialogue not only clarified the theoretical contours of “spiritual realism” but also demonstrated the distinctive vitality of Chinese literature in a global context.

As Xuemo observed in his concluding remarks, when a Western scholar draws on Patricia Waugh’s theory of metafiction to interpret the creative inspiration that a Chinese writer derives from the “unity of humanity and the cosmos,” a concrete form of mutual learning between civilizations is already taking place. Xuemo’s emphasis on “belief” returns literature to one of its oldest missions: to touch reality through fiction and to seek a spiritual home.

The two speakers agreed to hold a separate seminar on the “new historical novel” and other questions that remained open at the end of the discussion.