Wang Anyi

Wang Anyi (王安忆)
Born (1954-03-06) March 6, 1954
Nanjing, Jiangsu, China
Language Chinese
Education middle school
Period 1975–present
Genre fiction, prose
Literary movement Xungen movement
Notable works The Song of Everlasting Sorrow (1995)
Spouse Li Zhang (李章)
Relatives Ru Zhijuan, mother
Wang Anyi
Traditional Chinese 王安憶
Simplified Chinese 王安忆
This is a Chinese name; the family name is Wang.

Wang Anyi (born 6 March 1954) is a Chinese writer. The daughter of renowned writer Ru Zhijuan, Wang is considered a leading figure in contemporary Chinese literature. She has been vice-chair of China Writers Association since 2006, and professor in Chinese Literature at Fudan University since 2004.

Wang's stories are frequently set in her hometown Shanghai, and David Der-wei Wang has called her the "new successor to the Shanghai School". Wang also regularly writes about the countryside in Anhui, where she was "sent down" during the Cultural Revolution.

Biography

The second of three children of playwright Wang Xiaoping (王啸平) and story writer Ru Zhijuan, Wang Anyi was born in Nanjing in 1954, but moved to Shanghai at age 1 with her parents. Wang was raised in a well-protected family off wealthy Huaihai Road[1] and developed a habit of reading herself to sleep at a young age.[2] 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."[3]

During the lonely years in the countryside, "reading books and writing in my diary became even more precious to me".[2] Wang had hoped to enter a university as a Worker-Peasant-Soldier student but without a recommendation her dream was not realized. However, as she could play the accordion, in 1972 she found a position in the Xuzhou Song and Dance Cultural Troupe to play the cello. During her spare time she continued to write, and began to publish short stories in 1976. She was permitted to return to Shanghai in 1978 and worked as an editor of the literature magazine Childhood (儿童时代).[3]

In 1980 Wang became a professional writer, and that year received training from the China Writers Association at the Lu Xun Literary Institute. Her earlier works focused on individual experiences rather than the collective, politics-oriented literature advocated by the state.[4] 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.[5] This experience "led to the profound discovery that she was indeed Chinese and to the decision to 'write on China' when she returned". In her first major work after the trip, the award-winning novella Baotown (1985), Wang focused on the culture of rural China, drawing from her own experience. The benevolent child protagonist is contrasted with selfish, prejudicial, cruel and close-minded adult villagers, and Ying Hong remarked that Wang used "words that carry not the least hint of subjectivity she casually tosses forth a whole string of 'slices of life'."[6]

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.

Wang's most famous novel, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, traces the life story of a young Shanghainese girl from the 1940s all the way till her death after the Cultural Revolution. Although the book was published in 1995, it is already considered by many as a modern classic. Wang is often compared with another female writer from Shanghai, Eileen Chang, as both of their stories are often set in Shanghai, and give vivid and detailed descriptions of the city itself.

A novella and six of her stories have been translated and collected in an anthology, Lapse of Time. In his preface to that collection, Jeffrey Kinkley notes that Wang is a realist whose stories "are about everyday urban life" and that the author "does not stint in describing the brutalising density, the rude jostling, the interminable and often futile waiting in line that accompany life in the Chinese big city".

Wang has tried other forms of writing. In 1996 Wang co-wrote the period film Temptress Moon with director Chen Kaige and Shu Kei. In 2007, she translated Elizabeth Swados' My Depression: A Picture Book from English.

Works translated to English

YearChinese titleTranslated English titleTranslator(s)
1979雨，沙沙沙"And the Rain Patters On"[1]Michael Day
1980小院琐记"Life in a Small Courtyard"[1]Hu Zhihui
1981墙基"The Base of the Wall"[1]Daniel Bryant
朋友"Friends"[7]Nancy Shao-lan Lee
本次列车终点"The Destination"[1]Yu Fanqin
1982流逝Lapse of Time[1]Howard Goldblatt
舞台小世界"The Stage, a Miniature World"[1]Song Shouquan
1984人人之间"Between Themselves"[1]Gladys Yang
话说老秉"Speaking of Old Bing"[8]Chad Phelan
1985我为什么写作"Why I Write"[2]Michael Berry
小鲍庄Baotown[9]Martha Avery
老康回来"Lao Kang Came Back"[10]Jeanne Tai
"Lao Kang Is Back"[11]Denis C. Mair
阿跷传略"The Story of Ah Qiao"Yawtsong Lee[12]
1986阿芳的灯"Ah Fang's Light"
鸠雀一战"The Nest Fight"
"Birds Fighting for a Nest"[13]Nigel Bedford
名旦之口"The Mouth of the Famous Female Impersonator"[14]Zhu Zhiyu, Janice Wickeri
荒山之恋Love on a Barren Mountain[15]Eva Hung
小城之恋Love in a Small Town[16]
1987锦绣谷之恋Brocade Valley[17]Bonnie S. McDougall, Chen Maiping
面对自己"Needed: A Spirit of Courageous Self-Examination"[18]Ellen Lai-shan Yeung
1988女作家的自我"A Woman Writer's Sense of Self"[5]Wang Lingzhen, Mary Ann O'Donnell
1989弟兄们BrothersDiana B. Kingsbury[19]
Jingyuan Zhang[20]
1991妙妙Miaomiao[21]Don J. Cohn
乌托邦诗篇Utopian Verses[5]Wang Lingzhen, Mary Ann O'Donnell
1995长恨歌The Song of Everlasting SorrowMichael Berry, Susan Chan Egan
1996姊妹们Sisters[22]Ihor Pidhainy, Xiao-miao Lan
1998忧伤的年代Years of Sadness[5]Wang Lingzhen, Mary Ann O'Donnell
丧钟为谁而鸣"For Whom the Bell Tolls"[23]Gao Jin
遗民"Inhabitants of a Vintage Era"Yawtsong Lee[12]
大学生"The Grand Student"
小饭店"The Little Restaurant"
1999喜宴"A Nuptial Banquet"
开会"The Meeting"
花园的小红"Xiao Hong of the Village of Huayuan"
街灯底下"Under the Street Lights"[24]Shin Yong Robson
艺人之死"The Death of an Artist"[25]Hu Ying
2000王汉芳"Wang Hanfang"[26]
2002投我以木桃，报之以琼瑶"A Peach Was Presented Me, I Returned a Fine Jade"[23]Gao Jin
云低处"In the Belly of the Fog"[27]Canaan Morse
闺中"Maiden Days in the Boudoir"[28]Wang Zhiguang
2003发廊情话"Confidences in a Hair Salon"[29]Shi Xiaojing
2008黑弄堂"The Dark Alley"[30]Canaan Morse
骄傲的皮匠The Sanctimonious Cobbler[31]Andrea Lingenfelter

Major awards

Wang was also a finalist for the 4th Man Booker International Prize in 2011.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Wang Anyi (1988). Lapse of Time. China Books. ISBN 0-8351-2032-5.
  2. 1 2 3 Chinese Writers on Writing. Trinity University Press. 2010. ISBN 978-1-59534-063-4.
  3. 1 2 Leung, Laifong (1994). "Wang Anyi: Restless Explorer". Morning Sun: Interviews with Chinese Writers of the Lost Generation. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 177–87. ISBN 1-56324-093-9.
  4. ↑ Wang, Lingzhen (2003). "Wang Anyi". In Mostow, Joshua S. The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature. Columbia University Press. pp. 592–7. ISBN 0-231-11314-5.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Wang Anyi (2009). Years of Sadness. Translated by Wang Lingzhen; Mary Ann O'Donnell. Cornell University. ISBN 978-1-933947-47-1.
  6. ↑ Ying Hong (1991). "Wang Anyi and Her Fiction". In Ying Bian. The Time Is Not Yet Ripe: Contemporary China's Best Writers and Their Stories. Translated by Katharina A. Byrne. Foreign Languages Press. pp. 217–24. ISBN 7-119-00742-4.
  7. ↑ The Rose Colored Dinner: New Works by Contemporary Chinese Women Writers. Joint Publishing. 1988. ISBN 962-04-0615-X.
  8. ↑ Chinese Literature, Autumn 1989.
  9. ↑ Wang Anyi (1989). Baotown. Translated by Martha Avery. Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-82622-7.
  10. ↑ Spring Bamboo: A Collection of Contemporary Chinese Short Stories. Random House. 1989. ISBN 0-394-56582-7.
  11. ↑ The Time Is Not Yet Ripe: Contemporary China's Best Writers and Their Stories. Foreign Languages Press. 1991. ISBN 7-119-00742-4.
  12. 1 2 Wang Anyi (2010). The Little Restaurant. Translated by Yawtsong Lee. Better Link Press. ISBN 978-1-60220-225-2.
  13. ↑ Renditions (39), Spring 1993.
  14. ↑ Renditions (27 & 28), 1987.
  15. ↑ Wang Anyi (1991). Love on a Barren Mountain. Translated by Eva Hung. The Chinese University of Hong Kong. ISBN 962-7255-09-2.
  16. ↑ Wang Anyi (1988). Love in a Small Town. Translated by Eva Hung. The Chinese University of Hong Kong. ISBN 962-7255-03-3.
  17. ↑ Wang Anyi (1992). Brocade Valley. Translated by Bonnie S. McDougall; Chen Maiping. New Directions Publishing. ISBN 0-8112-1224-6.
  18. ↑ Modern Chinese Writers: Self-Portrayals. M. E. Sharpe. 1992. ISBN 0-87332-817-5.
  19. ↑ I Wish I Were a Wolf: The New Voice in Chinese Women's Literature. New World Press. 1994. ISBN 7-80005-124-2.
  20. ↑ Red Is Not the Only Color: Contemporary Chinese Fiction on Love and Sex Between Women, Collected Stories. Rowman & Littlefield. 2001. ISBN 0-7425-1137-5.
  21. ↑ Six Contemporary Chinese Women Writers (IV). Chinese Literature Press. 1995. ISBN 7-5071-0297-1.
  22. ↑ Dragonflies: Fiction by Chinese Women in the Twentieth Century. Cornell University. 2003. ISBN 1-885445-15-6.
  23. 1 2 One China, Many Paths. Verso Books. 2003. ISBN 1-85984-537-1.
  24. ↑ Renditions (69), Spring 2008.
  25. ↑ The Mystified Boat: Postmodern Stories from China. University of Hawaiʻi Press. 2003. ISBN 0-8248-2799-6.
  26. ↑ Words Without Borders, April 2008.
  27. ↑ Pathlight, Summer 2013.
  28. ↑ How Far Is Forever and More Stories by Women Writers. Foreign Languages Press. 2008. ISBN 978-7-119-05436-0.
  29. ↑ The Great Masque and More Stories of Life in the City. Foreign Languages Press. 2008. ISBN 978-7-119-05437-7.
  30. ↑ Pathlight, Summer 2012.
  31. ↑ By the River: Seven Contemporary Chinese Novellas. University of Oklahoma Press. 2016. ISBN 978-0-8061-5404-6.
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