Wang, Anyi 1954-

views updated

WANG, Anyi 1954-

PERSONAL: Born 1954, in Nanjing, China; daughter of Ru Zhijuan (a writer). Education: Attended University of Iowa International Writing Program, 1983.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, New Directions, 80 Eighth Ave., New York, NY 10011.

CAREER: Novelist and author of screenplays and short fiction. Lecturer in China and the United States.

MEMBER: Chinese Association of Writers.

WRITINGS:

Yu, sha sha sha (stories; title means "The Rain Patters On"), Bai hua wen yi chubanshe (Tianjin, China), 1981.

Wang Anyi zhong duan pian xiao shuo ji, Zhongguo qing nian chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1983.

Hei hie bai bai, Shao nian er tong chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 1983.

Weisheng, Sichuan ren min chubanshe (Chengdu, China), 1983.

Yang qi li xiang di feng fan, Zhongguo qing nian chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1983.

Liushi, Sichuan ren min chubanshe (Chengdu, China), 1983, translation by Gladys Yang and others published as Lapse of Time, Panda Books (San Francisco, CA), 1988.
69 jie chuzhong sheng, 1984, Zhongguo qing nian chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1986.

Mu nü tong you Meilijian, San lian shu dian Xianggang fen dian (Xianggang, China), 1986.

Xiao Baozhuang, Wen yi chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 1986, translation by Martha Avery published as Baotown, Viking (London, England), 1988.

Huanghe gudao ren, Sichuan wen yi chubanshe (Chengdu, China), 1986.

Mu nü man you Meilijian, Shanghai wen yi chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 1986.

Huangshan zhi lian (novel; first in trilogy), 1986, Nan Yue chubanshe (Xianggang, China), 1988, translation by Eva Hung published as Love on a Barren Mountain, Renditions (Hong Kong), 1991.

Xiaocheng zhi lian (novel; second in trilogy), 1986, Lin bai chubanshe you xian gong si (Taipei, China), 1988, translation by Eva Hung published as Love in a Small Town, Renditions (Hong Kong), 1989.

Junxiugu zhi lian (novel; third in trilogy), [China], 1987, translation by Bonnie S. McDougall and Chen Maiping published as Brocade Valley, New Directions (New York, NY), 1992.

Liushui sanshi zhang, 1988, Shanghai wen yi chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 1990.

Pugong ying, Shanghai wen yi chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 1989.

Hai shang fanhua meng, Hua cheng chubanshe (Guangzhou, China), 1989.

Lü De di gushi, Jiangsu wen yi chubanshe (Nanjing, China), 1990.

Shushu di gushi, Ye quiang chubanshe (Taipei, China), 1990.

Shen sheng ji tan, Ren min wen xue chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1991.

Mi Ni (short stories), Jiangsu wen yi chubanshe (Nanjing Shi, China), 1991, published as Mi Ni: zhang pain xiao shuo jiuan, Zuo jia chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1996.

Zhu lu zhong jie, Mai tian chuban you xian gong si (Taipei, China), 1992.

(With Zhang Xinxin) Nan nan nü nü, Qin yuan chubanshe (Xianggang, China), 1992.

Zhi quing xioa shuo: cuo tuo sui yue yong tan diao, Sichuan wen yi chubanshe (Chengdu, China), 1992.

Jishi he xu gou: Chuang zaoshi jie fang fa zhi yi zhong, Ren min wen xue chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1993.

Wu tuo bang shi pian, Hua yi chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1993.

Bian zou: Nu xing yi duan wen xue, Chun feng wen yi chubanshe (Shenyang, China), 1993.

(With others) Fu xi he mu xi di shin hua, Zhejiang wen yi chubanshe (Hangzhou, China), 1994.

Xianggang de qing yu ai, Mai tian chuban you xian gong si (Taipei, China), 1994.

Mei gui zhi men, Shi dai wen yi chubanshe (Zhangchun, China), 1995.

Shangxin Taipingyang, Hua yi chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1995.

Changhen ge, Zuo jia chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1996.

Zi wu, Jin ri Zhongguo chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1995.

Wang Anyi, Ren min wen xue chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1995.

Cheng huo che lü xing, Zhongguo Hua qiao chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1995.

Piao po de yu yan: san wen juan, Zuo jia chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1996.

Hai shang fan hua meng: zhong pian xiao shuo juan (short stories), Zuo jia chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1996.

Xiao cheng zhi lian: zhong pian xiao shuo juan (short stories), Zuo jia chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1996.

Xianggang de qing yu ai: zhong pian xiao shuo juan (short stories), Zuo jia chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1996.

(With Chen Kaige) Feng yue (screenplay; produced as Temptress Moon, Miramax, 1996), Yuan liu chubanshi ye gu fen you xian gong si (Taipei, China), 1996.

Jishi yu xu gou: Shanghai de gu shi (title means "Reality and Fiction: A Shanghai Story"), Mai tian chuban you xian gong si (Taipei, China), 1996.

Qing jie = Quin jie, Dunhuang wen yi chubanshe (Lanzhou, China), 1996.

Ren shi di chen fu, Wen hui chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 1996.

Zi mie men: Wang Anyi zhong duan pian xiao shuo zi xuan ji (short stories), Hua xia chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1996.

Chenghen ge: chang pian xiao shuo juan (short stories; title means "Song of Everlasting Sorrow"), Zuo jia chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1996.

Wang Anyi zi xuan ji, Zuo jia chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1996.

Chong jian xiang ya ta, Shanghai yuan dong chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 1997.

Wang Anyi xuan jin ren san wen, Shanghai wen yi chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 1997.

Xin ling shi jie: Wang Anyi xiao shui jiang gao, Fu dan da xue chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 1997.

Yi ge gu shi di san zhong jiang fa, Ming tian chubanshe (Jinan, China), 1997.

Du yu, Hunan wen yi chubanshe (Changsha, China), 1998.

Chu nü dan, Mai tian chuban you xian gong si (Taipei, China), 1998.

You shang de nian dai, Mai tian chuban you xian gong si (Taipei, China), 1998.

Jie jin shi ji chu: Wang Anyi san wen xin zuo, Zhejiang wen yi chubanshe (Hangzhou, China), 1998.

Fu Ping, Hunan wen yi chubanshe (Changsha, China), 1998.

Wo ai Bi'er, Jin ri Zhongguo chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1998.

Yin ju di shi dai, Mai tian chuban you xian gong si (Taipei, China), 1999.

Wang Anyi xiao shuo xuan (short stories; in Chinese and English), Zhongguo wen xue chubanshe (Beijing, China), 1999.

Nü ren er shi, Hunan wen yi chubanshe (Changsha, China), 2000.

Qing zhi shang, Zhongguo wen lian chubanshe (Beijing, China), 2000.

Mei tou, Nan hai chuban gong si (Haikou, China), 2000.

Gang shang de shi ji, Yunnan ren min chubanshe (Kunming, China), 2000.

Nan ren he nü ren nü ren he cheng shi, Yunnan ren min chubanshe (Kunming, China), 2000.

Ti du, Nan hai chuban gong si (Haikou, China), 2000.

Mini, Nan hai chuban gong si (Haikou, China), 2000.

Ge xing Riben lai, Bei yue wen yi chubanshe (Taiwan, China), 2000.

San lian = Shan lian, Zhejiang wen yi chubanshe (Hangzhou, China), 2001.

Wen gong tuan: Wang Anyi xiao shuo (short stories), Wen hua yi shu chubanshe (Beijing, China), 2001.

Wo du wo kan, Shanghai ren min chubanshe (Shanghai, China), 2001.

Contributor to Childhood magazine.

SIDELIGHTS: Chinese novelist and short-story writer Wang Anyi is notable as a voice for women in the post-Mao era. She has based some of her fiction on her life as a young woman growing up before and during the Cultural Revolution. Wang's mother, Ru Zhijuan, was a noted writer herself, and Wang grew up in a politically charged household. Her father was denounced for his Rightist views, and the controversy interrupted Wang's education. As a teenager she was a member of the "Urban Youth," a back-to-basics movement that sent urbanized young adults to live with and learn from the peasant class. After living in a commune in Anhui, China, Wang at age sixteen got a new assignment: joining a state-sponsored traveling performing-arts troupe as a cellist. By 1976, at age nineteen, Wang began publishing her stories; following the Cultural Revolution and the fall of the Gang of Four she returned to Shanghai to work on the magazine Childhood.

Wang's earliest collection of stories, 1981's Yu, sha sha sha, focuses on personal experience as seen through the eyes of a writer still in her twenties. A prolific writer, she continued to publish short stories, as well as novellas and novels, throughout the 1980s, and has rarely flagged in the production of books since beginning her career.

A handful of Wang's works have been brought to English-reading audiences. Baotown is a short novel about life in a small village much like Anhui, where the author spent her adolescent years. The chapters focus on the different characters who inhabit this town. One of the protagonists is Little Jade, a smart and beautiful girl who is set up to marry what Carolyn See, in a Los Angeles Times Book Review article, called "the town lummox. How she gets out of this is an ongoing shaggy-dog tale." In another chapter, a single woman adopts an orphan boy; all is well until the boy grows up and the two engage in a physical relationship that enrages the town. "In a contest among affection, lust and/or family loyalty," noted See, "a series of imaginative arrangements must be made." See called Baotown a "marvelously interesting book," a view shared by Valerie Miner of Nation. While expressing some disappointment that "most of [Baotown's] major characters are male," Miner went on to praise the work as "a very satisfying novel—deft, original, tragic, funny."

In one story from her collection Lapse of Time, Wang explores "what has become a familiar Chinese theme," according to New York Review of Books contributor Jonathan Mirsky: the effect of the Cultural Revolution on everyday people. In this case, Lao Kang is an office worker exiled from the city to the country, "probably because he comes from the upper class," wrote Mirsky, after which "he is pardoned and returns, a suffering, silent wreck." Wang, the reviewer continued, "likes optimistic endings; she finishes with 'the profound and insightful' words of Lao Kang's cheerful old housekeeper that, when you come down to it, life is just breathing in and out—so Lao Kang is not so badly off after all." Scarlet Cheng, writing in Belles Lettres, was reminded of Wang's stint as a traveling performer while reading the story "The Stage, a Miniature World." In this tale, a musical troupe designed to enlighten the masses "finds itself stooping to featuring an electric guitarist because audiences crave the new," as Cheng wrote. In fact, the reviewer added, "Change is much of what these stories are about: in the political and social environment, in family fortunes, in the self."

Wang caused something of a scandal in 1980s China when she published a trilogy of novels all containing the word lien—"love"; i.e. sex—in the title. "It was regarded at the time either as a daring 'breakthrough' by supporters or an immoral piece of pornography by detractors," explained Pacific Affairs critic Michael S. Duke. The three books were published in English as Love on a Barren Mountain, Love in a Small Town, and Brocade Valley. Love on a Barren Mountain puts political ideals aside, said Fatima Wu, to explore "extramarital relationships in a culturally repressed society." Wu, writing in World Literature Today, explained that the novel focuses on two lovers, separated by fate, who are brought together in midlife when both have married and established families. Their union, which ends tragically, said Wu, appeared predestined by the author: "the girl keeps on crying, while the music of the erhu seems to be weeping. Wang's gloomy world view, symbolized by the barren mountain, seems to announce that nothing could have prevented or stopped the [lovers'] double suicide."

Love in a Small Town tells of an affair carried on over several years by two members of a rural ballet troupe. The two meet when the boy is sixteen and the girl twelve; Wang has said that the story is based on events she witnessed during her days as a state-sponsored performer. Duke dismissed the tale as "excruciatingly dull," while Russell McLeod of World Literature Today had a different reaction. "After years of often dreary 'social realism' and 'revolutionary romanticism,'" he said, "it is refreshing to read a piece of fiction in which the author's only interest is in a universal human impulse."

The third novel in the trilogy, Brocade Valley tells of a woman whose daily drudgery of work and housekeeping is broken by a brief extramarital fling. Like Love in a Small Town, Brocade Valley was met with mixed critical reaction. The novel "promises drama that it never delivers," according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer, who added that the author "makes it difficult [for readers] to care about her unnamed characters." But in a World Literature Today piece, Frances La Fleur thought that the author kept a deliberate distance from her characters: She "creates a fairy-tale-like atmosphere in which the heroine escapes from her humdrum existence." LaFleur summed up Brocade Valley as "an absorbing story, told with the delicacy and restraint that characterize Wang Anyi's unique style."

In the 1990s, Wang turned to her family's history as a source for her writing, publishing works that combine mythology and history with personal memoirs and fantasies. The author has also published works of journalism, travel writings, and literary criticism. Much in demand as a speaker in China and the United States, she had become something of a symbol of the future of postrevolutionary Chinese literature by 2000. Eva Hung, writing in Encyclopedia of World Literature in the Twentieth Century, stated that "While her existing oeuvre will ensure her a prominent place in the history of Chinese literature, there is reason to believe that the imaginative scope of [Wang's] work will continue to grow."

"I firmly believe that an individual, and a people, must possess the insight and courage to engage in self-examination," Wang once said in a speech for the International Conference on Contemporary Chinese Literature that was quoted on the Kirjasto Web site. "This spirit of self-examination is what guarantees that individuals will become real human beings, and that a people will develop into a strong and worthy nation."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

books

Encyclopedia of World Literature in the TwentiethCentury, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999.

periodicals

Belles Lettres, winter, 1989, Scarlet Cheng, "Foreign All Your Life," p. 9.

Booklist, October 15, 1989, review of Baotown, p. 425; January 1, 1991, review of Baotown, p. 915; November 1, 1992, review of Brocade Valley, p. 488; March 1, 1999, review of You shang de nian dai, p. 1162.

Choice, April, 1994, Jeffrey Kinkley, "The New Chinese Literature: The Mainland and Beyond," pp. 1249-1265.

Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 1988, review of Lapse ofTime, p. 1097; October 1, 1992, review of Brocade Valley, p. 1213.

Library Journal, September 15, 1989, review of Baotown, p. 138.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, January 14, 1990, Carolyn See, "Cultural Revolution," p. 1.

Nation, March 19, 1990, Valerie Miner, review of Baotown, p. 389.

New York Review of Books, October 26, 1989, Jonathan Mirsky, "Stories from the Ice Age," p. 27.

Pacific Affairs, fall, 1989, Michael Duke, review of Love in a Small Town, pp. 445-446.

Publishers Weekly, August 26, 1988, review of Lapse of Time, p. 79; August 18, 1989, review of Baotown, p. 49; September 28, 1992, review of Brocade Valley, p. 64.

World Literature Today, summer, 1989, Michael Duke, review of Lapse of Time, p. 535; winter, 1990, Russell McLeod, review of Love in a Small Town, pp. 192-193; summer, 1991, Fatima Wu, review of Love on a Barren Mountain, p. 547; autumn, 1993, Frances LaFleur, review of Brocade Valley, p. 891.