Ван Аньи: Жизнь и творчество современной китайской писательницы.

Chinese writer

Wang Anyi (born 6 March 1954) is a Chinese writer, vice chair of the China Writers Association since 2006, and professor in Chinese Literature at Fudan University since 2004. Wang widely write novels, novellas, short stories and essays with diverse themes and topics. The majority of her works are set in Shanghai, where she lived and worked for the majority of her life. Wang also regularly writes about the countryside in Anhui, where she was "sent down" during the Cultural Revolution. Her works have been translated into English, German and French, and studied as zhiqing (educated youth), xungen (roots searching), Haipai (Shanghai style), and dushi (urban, cosmopolitan) literature.

In 1969, after graduating from middle school, Wang was "sent down" to the countryside of Wuhe County, Anhui—then an impoverished province plagued by famine. The rustication experience traumatized her. In the late 1980s, Wang said: "When I left, I left with the feelings of escaping from hell." During the lonely years in the countryside, "reading books and writing in my diary became even more precious to me". In 1982 and 1983, her short story "The Destination" and novella Lapse of Time won national awards. In Lapse of Time, Wang shifted from emotional intensity in her previous work to the mundane day to day lives. But it was a 1983 trip to Iowa City, Iowa, United States for the International Writing Program, with her mother Ru Zhijuan, that redefined her career. There she met writer Chen Yingzhen, a social activist and Chinese nationalist from Taiwan, whose humanistic worldview and encouragement strongly influenced her. Since Baotown, Wang began exploring social taboo subjects. Her three novellas on forbidden carnal love, namely Love on a Barren Mountain (1986), Love in a Small Town (1986), and Brocade Valley (1987), provoked much controversy despite virtually no depictions of sex. Her 1989 novella Brothers made forays into the fragile same sex, non sexual female bond. However, in a 1988 interview Wang stated her "purpose and theme" have been consistently about man and love. During 1990s, the literal technics of Wang have been more skilled, and her works "not only reveal social relationships, but some of the basic attributes (natural attributes) of people and their profound constraining power over the fate of individuals.

Wang likes to combine history with current facts to create, and integrate historical cultural into the narrative of the novel. "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" is actually a poem written by Bai Juyi, a poet in the Tang dynasty, about the love between Tang Xuanzong and Concubine Yang. Based on a piece of real news and ancient history, Wang Anyi unfolded another kind of love story, cleverly combining current knowledge and history. On the other hand, Wang Anyi is good at narrative methods that see the ‘big’ from the ‘small’. From "Song of Everlasting Regret" to "Kao Gong Ji", she reflects the changes in society and the times through the description of characters. Hong Zicheng commented that "Among women writers, Wang Anyi is seen as a writer with an exceptionally wide field of vision and the ability to harness many forms of life experience and literary subject matter." The cultural critic, Dai Jinhua, remarked on her literary creation after Wang won the 2017 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature, "Wang Anyi is a good at capturing the miniature drama of mundane lives Her world is a gallery of humans, in which you encounter China, the world, and the river of life that is enduring and sublime, yielding yet constantly invigorated She does not write about ordinary people in a general sense; she writes about laborers, and the daily lives of those laborers, regarding their love, fear, life, and death." Through her writing career, Wang transitioned from experience based writing to more strategic narration. In a 1991 interview, she claims that her early works only describes scenes, without the narrator's presence. Late on, she transitioned from objective narration to more subjective narration. Wang is often recognized as a feminist writer, although she does not self identify as a feminist. "Critics often says that I am under the influence of feminism. They say I am disappointed in man, which I am not."

YearChinese titleTranslated English titleTranslator(s)1979雨，沙沙沙"And the Rain Patters On"Hu Zhihui1981墙基"The Base of the Wall"Nancy Lee本次列车终点"The Destination"Chad Phelan1985我为什么写作"Why I Write"Michael Berry小鲍庄BaotownMartha Avery母亲"Mother"Todd Foley老康回来"Lao Kang Came Back"Jeanne Tai"Lao Kang Is Back"Denis C. Mair阿跷传略"The Story of Ah Qiao"Yawtsong Lee1986阿芳的灯"Ah Fang's Light"鸠雀一战"The Nest Fight""Ah Fang's Lamp"Helen Wang"Birds Fighting for a Nest"Nigel Bedford名旦之口"The Mouth of the Famous Female Impersonator"Zhu Zhiyu, Janice Wickeri荒山之恋Love on a Barren MountainEva Hung小城之恋Love in a Small Town1987锦绣谷之恋Brocade ValleyBonnie S. McDougall, Chen Maiping面对自己"Needed: A Spirit of Courageous Self Examination"Ellen Lai shan Yeung1988女作家的自我"A Woman Writer's Sense of Self"Wang Lingzhen, Mary Ann O'Donnell1989弟兄们"Brothers"Diana B. KingsburyJingyuan Zhang1991妙妙"Miaomiao"Don J. Cohn乌托邦诗篇"Utopian Verses"Ihor Pidhainy, Xiao miao Lan我爱比尔“I Love Bill" (excerpt)Todd Foley1997文工团”The Troupe" (excerpt)Todd Foley1998忧伤的年代"Years of Sadness"Gao Jin天仙配“Match Made in Heaven"Todd Foley遗民"Inhabitants of a Vintage Era"Yawtsong LeeYuvonne Yee"A Nuptial Banquet"Yawtsong LeeWang Mingjie街灯底下"Under the Street Lights"Shin Yong Robson艺人之死"The Death of an Artist"Hu Ying2000王汉芳"Wang Hanfang"富萍Fu PingHoward Goldblatt2001民工刘建华"Liu Jianhua the Migrant Worker"Sylvia Yu, Benjamin Chang, Chris Malone2002投我以木桃，报之以琼瑶"A Peach Was Presented Me, I Returned a Fine Jade"Canaan Morse闺中"Maiden Days in the Boudoir"Wang Zhiguang2003姊妹行"A Girls' Trip"Todd Foley发廊情话"Confidences in a Hair Salon"Shi Xiaojing"Love Talk at Hairdresser's"Hui L. Glennie, John R. Glennie2007救命车"The Rescue Truck"Todd Foley2008黑弄堂"The Dark Alley"Canaan Morse骄傲的皮匠"The Sanctimonious Cobbler"Andrea Lingenfelter