麦家与中国当代谍报文学

This paper studies the characteristics of Mai Jia’s spy fiction. Placing it under the global map of spy fiction as a genre, this paper evaluates the uniqueness and contribution of Mai Jia to this genre. It identifies two themes of Mai Jia’s works: The truth of history does not necessarily have the only answer, and individual’s growth may not develop through a rational way. The main characteristics of Mai Jia include that he provides different perspective of certain event through various methods such as letters and interview; The unexpected ending of the story creates a dramatic effect of the uncertainty of life; The texts deconstruct the holy revolutionary discourse with the vernacular emotion and everyday practices. Through these methods, Mai Jia succeeds in overthrowing the tradition of Chinese spy fiction in the 1950s.