Synopses & Reviews
Writing Women in Modern China is the first major anthology in English to highlight the contributions of women to modern literary culture with respect to the heated gender debates of early twentieth-century China. Featuring examples of fiction, drama, autobiography, essays, and poetry by eighteen writers, many of whom have been neglected by mainstream literary history, this collection demonstrates the creative diversity in modern women's writing.
The editors' introduction charts key developments in the study of gender, literature, and women's writing in modern China and provides an overview of the relevant historical events of this century's first three decades. From Qiu Jin's experimental narrative Stones of the Kingwei Bird, one of the earliest fictional representations of women's liberation from the traditional Confucian family, to Bing Xin's Our Mistress's Parlor, which presents a satire of an intellectual salon in 1930s Shanghai, Writing Women in Modern China offers an unrivaled opportunity to explore an important body of imaginative work.
Review
"Three generations of Chinese women's writings appear in this important collection of writings....Their writings, instead of presenting a unified image of the ideal modern woman, probe the dilemmas and conflicts faced by urban, educated Chinese women in an age of social and political upheaval." Dorothy V. Borei, Guilford College, Journal of Asian American Studies
Review
"The Writing Women in Modern China anthology draws together some of the most exciting writing that had a formative role in bringing to the surface a female consciousness in China which challenged many perceived standards of the day." Olivier Bruckhardt, Contemporary Review
Review
"The best anthology to date of feminist Chinese women's creative writing from the period 1905 to 1937....Given the importance of literature in Chinese culture, this may be the first book any college or public library should buy on the subject of modern Chinese feminism." Choice
Synopsis
Spanning the first three decades of this century to the Sino-Japanese War, these twenty-two works of fiction, drama, autobiography, essays, and poetry, each newly translated and prefaced by the author's photograph and a short biographical sketch, introduce women whose literary careers coincided with an era of tremendous social, political, and cultural turbulence.
Synopsis
Writing Women in Modern China is the first major anthology in English to highlight the contributions of women to modern literary culture with respect to the heated gender debates of early twentieth-century China. Featuring examples of fiction, drama, autobiography, essays, and poetry by eighteen writers, many of whom have been neglected by mainstream literary history, this collection demonstrates the creative diversity in modern women's writing.
The editors' introduction charts key developments in the study of gender, literature, and women's writing in modern China and provides an overview of the relevant historical events of this century's first three decades. From Qiu Jin's experimental narrative Stones of the Kingwei Bird, one of the earliest fictional representations of women's liberation from the traditional Confucian family, to Bing Xin's Our Mistress's Parlor, which presents a satire of an intellectual salon in 1930s Shanghai, Writing Women in Modern China offers an unrivaled opportunity to explore an important body of imaginative work.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [377]-394).