THE conflicts between traditional literary critics and young writers have been renewed by a new duel between young authors of fantasy literature and a Beijing professor.

Just as the war between 1980s writer Han Han and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholar Bai Ye has tamed, Beijing professor Tao Dongfeng has begun a second-round battle with young novelists of fantasy fiction.

The dispute began between Tao Dongfeng, literary critic and professor at Capital Normal University, and Xiao Ding, writer of "Zhu Xian (Killing Gods)," a fantasy novel that describes a young man's adventures of war and love in a world of devils.

The battleground is again in blogosphere. On June 18, Tao published a literary analysis on his blog at the portal sina.com.

In the article, Tao said that "Zhu Xian" was based on "grossly fabricated magic and witchcraft."

"The witchcraft tales written by 1980s writers lack humanism, because the writers have distorted value," Tao wrote in the article.

The novel first appeared online in 2003. In the first four months after its publishing in May of last year, it sold over 600,000 copies.

Tao also criticized blockbusters "Hero" and "The Promise" for having too many gods, ghosts and witchcraft, which, according to him, have become an "abnormal phenomenon."

The 1980s writers were quick to retort. On June 20, Xiao Ding defended "Zhu Xian" and accused Tao of "trying to gain fame by criticizing the young writers."

Ming Mei, writer of "Yi Ren Ao Shi Lu," (The Story of a Bazaar Figure), said Tao's words were "unfair."

Lin Qianyu, who recently won the championship at a literary writing contest organized by sina.com, echoed the two.

"It is not wrong to have witchcraft and special treasure in a literary piece," he said, adding that Tao did not understand the merits of "artistic exaggeration." He even went further criticizing Tao for "insulting the young writers as well as his professor title."

Different from Bai Ye, who was attacked by the young writers but got support from the traditional literary circle, Tao has few supporters in the literary critic circle.

Zheng Baochun, a researcher of the "witchcraft literature," and former chief editor of magazine Legends¡¤Kung Fu, said Tao did not understand witchcraft literature.

"He did not read the works of good witchcraft literature writers like Jiang Nan, Cang Yue, Yan Leisheng, Shen Yinyin and Fei Buyan. It's absurd making judgments without getting a full picture of the literature's style," said Zheng.

Literary critic Wang Gan added that "witchcraft was an important part of the traditional Chinese literature."

However, Tao was not reluctant to express his discomfort with the idea. He responded that while ghosts, gods and witchcraft did appeared in classics, they did not play a dominant role, as in the stories of current fantasy writers.

Tao said that his article was a "radical" way of expressing his worry about the spiritual void of the 1980s generation.

"The 1980s generation grew up by playing electronic games. They are obsessed with a virtual world, and care nothing about public affairs. I found this spiritual status widely spread among my students, most of whom born in the 1980s," said Tao.

"The 1980s generation is materially rich but spiritually poor. Born in an era ruptured from history, they are deprived of memory of the past and of care for reality," he said.

Despite the widespread critics against him, Tao said he would not shut off his blog. "I'm not so weak," he said.

Editor: Wing