Personally, I think that no matter whether it is modern or contemporary literature, we can find representative writers' works by grasping the main literary schools or trends and finding out the representative figures of each school. Modern New Poetry School is represented by Dai Wangshu, and Crescent School is represented by Xu Zhimo and Wen Yiduo. And novels, of course. Lu Xun is an outstanding representative. He supports Hu Feng and Xiao Jun Xiaohong. The tide of contemporary novels appeared under the policy of letting a hundred flowers blossom in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Of course, the model operas of the Cultural Revolution are of little value. The new period after the Cultural Revolution is mainly scar literature, represented by Wei Liu, whose novel Scar and The Head Teacher. Introspective literature, representing middle age, reform literature, Notes on Factory Director Joe's Taking Office, Root-seeking literature, Daddy, Daughter, Daughter by Han Shaogong, local literature, Notes on Making a scene by Wang Zengqi, new realistic novels, Worrying Life by Chi Li, avant-garde novels and Living by Yu Hua.
This is the author's works listed in my comprehensive literary history. I hope it works for you. Seeing that you have worked so hard to introduce China literature to foreigners, the score is not important. Ha ha.
Lu Xun's Restaurant, Casting Sword and Hometown respectively created three major themes of China's modern and contemporary literature, namely, the intellectual theme, the historical theme and the local theme. These themes continue to this day.
Mao Dun's Midnight reflects the dark situation in China on the eve of the new-democratic revolution and the theme of the demise of national capitalism under the oppression of foreign capitalism and feudalism in China.
Shen Congwen's Border Town is a poetic description of the rural areas in western Hunan before liberation, showing the primitive life state that has not been eroded by modern civilization.
Lao She's Camel Xiangzi reveals the miserable situation of the working people before liberation. Hong Xiao's Biography of Hulan River reveals the situation of northeast rural areas before liberation and people's persistent life consciousness. Li Youcai Banhua by Zhao Shuli is the representative work of Shan Yao Egg School, which reflects the new people, new things and unreasonable phenomena after liberation. Wang Meng's The Sound of Spring is a masterpiece of trying to use the stream of consciousness in western literary theory in the new period after the Cultural Revolution.
Chess King in Acheng is a representative of root-seeking literature, and Han Shaogong's can also introduce it, if time permits.
Mo Yan's Transparent Carrot is one of the representative works of avant-garde literature in the 1980s and 1990s, and so is Yu Hua's.
Wang Anyi's documentaries and novels can also be introduced. She is a great writer in the 1990s.