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Revolution, foreign occupation, and political, cultural, and economic upheavals defined mid-twentieth-century Chinese society. This new anthology, a sequel to the acclaimed first volume, compiled by Dooling and Kristina Torgeson and covering the early twentieth century, includes an impressive range of literary, personal, and journalistic responses to these tumultuous events. From succinct reportage of contemporary historical circumstances to comic accounts of twentieth-century urban living to carefully stylized modernist works of fiction, the selections in this anthology reflect the diversity, liveliness, humor, and surprising cosmopolitanism of womens writing from the period. This collection also reveals the ways in which women writers imagined and inscribed new meanings to Chinese feminism.
Biographical information on the writers -- including Yang Gang, Bai Wei, Hu Lanxi, Yang Jiang, Zong Pu, Chen Ruoxi, and others -- introduces the selections from their works. Doolings critical introduction and bibliographical materials further enrich readersunderstanding of the role of womens writing in Chinese literary modernity.
List of contents
Introduction
Yang Gang / Fragment from a Lost Diary (1936), translated by the author
Yang Gang / The American South (1951), translated by Robin Visser
Bai Wei / Third-Class Hospital Ward (1936), translated by Amy Dooling
Hu Lanqi / In a German Women's Prison (1937), translated by Hu Mingliang
Chen Xuezhao / The Essentials and Ambiance of Life (1940), translated by Shu Yunzhong
Crossing the Tong-Pu Railroad (1949), translated by Shu Yunzhong
Xie Bingying / The Girl Umeko (1941), translated by Hu Mingliang
Yang Jiang / Forging the Truth (1944), translated by Amy Dooling
Su Qing / Waves (1945), translated by Cathy Silber
Fengzi / The Portrait (1947), translated by Ann Huss
Lu Xiaoman / The Imperial Hotel (1947), translated by Amy Dooling
Zong Pu / Red Beans (1957), translated by Geremie Barme
Ru Zhijuan / The Warmth of Spring (1959), translated by Sabina Knight
Chen Ruoxi / Residency Check (1976), translated by Howard Goldblatt
Summary
Includes various literary, personal, and journalistic responses to the events in the mid-twentieth-century Chinese society. This work reflects the diversity, liveliness, humor, and cosmopolitanism of women's writing from the period. It also reveals the ways in which women writers imagined and inscribed new meanings to Chinese feminism.
