Wang Meng (; born 15 October 1934) is a Chinese writer who served as China's Minister of Culture from 1986 to 1989.
Wang was born in Beijing in 1934. During his middle school years, he was introduced to the Chinese Communist Party ideology and joined the Communist Youth League.
Wang Meng has published over 60 books since 1955, including six novels, ten short-story collections, as well as other works of poetry, prose and critical essays.
In 1956 Wang published a novella, "The Young Newcomer in the Organizational Department" (). The novella addresses issues related to the behavior of dogmatic bureaucrats of the older generation. The protagonist is a young cadre transferred to the local organization department, where he grows fond of a female colleague. Assigned to report on Party membership in a local factory, he finds that the workers are greatly dissatisfied with factory management, and the organization department has not taken their reports about mismanagement seriously. Organization department leaders initially dismiss the protagonist's reports as well and cover for factory management. The protagonist and his female colleague encourage each other, and eventually the protagonist decides to be resolute in making the Party better, and in the final scene of the novella goes to knock loudly and confidently on the District Secretary's door to report the situation.
The novella caused a great uproar. It was discussed in 43 articles between December 1956 and May 1957. Detractors criticized what they described as the protagonist's self-absorbed sense of heroism and the novel's "bourgeois" musings about love and romance. The novella also had defenders. Mao Zedong stated that he had read the novella and, though he viewed it as having some shortcomings, he viewed it as consistent with the Hundred Flowers Movement. A People's Daily article by Lin Mohan discussed strengths and weaknesses of the novella, and the criticized portions were mainly parts of the novella inserted by Wang's editor, which Wang did not feel he could object to. In May 1957, Wang criticized editors in general, contending that they often displayed "the airs of businessmen and of the demimonde" and that they should be more socialist and less commercial in their thinking.
During the Anti-Rightist Campaign, Wang was questioned repeatedly by superiors in his work unit. He himself criticized Ding Ling, a prominent target of the campaighn, during this period. In May 1958, Wang was designated a rightist and sent to the countryside for reform.
In 1961, Wang's case was reconsidered and the label of "rightist" removed from him. Despite having recently been deemed a rightist, Wang published some works in People's Literature during the early 1960s. In 1962, he moved back to Beijing and worked as a university professor.
In 1963, he met with representatives of the Xinjiang branch of the China Writers Association and decided that Xinjiang might be a fascinating place to work as a professional writer. He moved to Xinjiang, where he worked and lived until after the Cultural Revolution.
After the Cultural Revolution, Wang returned to Beijing. His political reputation was fully rehabilitated and he published extensively, building a reputation as a highly original writer and a committed socialist and Party member.
He served as China's Minister of Culture from July 1986 to September 1989.
In 1999, Wang, along with Liu Xinwu and Mo Yan, was a referee for an online literature contest hosted by NetEase which contributed to the early growth of internet literature in China.
On 27 June 2015 at the United International College's 7th Graduation Ceremony in Zhuhai, Wang Meng was rewarded with the Honorary Fellowships. In 2015 he was awarded the Mao Dun Literature Prize for The Scenery Around Here.