The Last “Hero” and Jia Pingwa's Ecological Concerns in Remembering Wolves

Abstract As a writer rooted in China's historical, social, and cultural transformation, Jia Pingwa has expressed in his works his anxieties over environmental deterioration and the effects of that deterioration on people. With the thriving of ecocriticism in China, his Remembering Wolves has received a new wave of significant attention due to its ecological concerns. In tracing Gao Ziming's journey to photograph the fifteen remaining wolves in Shangzhou, Jia weaves different strands of ecological thoughts into the story. Through a close reading of this novel, this essay first attempts to reveal the way Jia expresses his anxieties over the current racial degeneration, it then proceeds to analyze his mobilization of traditional Chinese ecological thoughts in his representation of nature. It ends by highlighting the intrinsic connection between the environmental crisis and the current social problems in China.