Sunday, September 21, 2008
Ji-li Jiang
Ji-li Jiang is the author of the book ''Red Scarf Girl''. She grew up and lived in Shanghai, China in a large apartment with her father, mother, brother, sister, grandmother, and cat. Ji-li was a star student until 1966 when Mao Zedong started the Cultural Revolution. After discovering her family was a "black family" or exploiters of the working class, Ji-li and her family had to endure the torment of students and Red Guards. When the Revolution ended, Jiang and her family moved to Hawaii. When she mastered English, she wrote Red Scarf Girl.
Ding Ling
Dīng Líng was the pseudonym of Jiǎng Bīngzhī , also known as Bīn Zhǐ , a contemporary Chinese author from Linli , Hunan province.
Ding Ling was born into a formerly wealthy gentry family in Hunan province. Her father's health was poor, and he passed away when Ding was three. Ding Ling's mother, who raised her children alone while becoming a well-known educator, was Ding's role model, and she would later write an unfinished novel, titled ''Mother'', which described her mother's experiences. Following her mother's example, Ding Ling became an activist at an early age. Ding Ling early repudiated traditional Chinese family practices by refusing to marry her cousin who had been chosen to become her husband. She rejected the commonly accepted view that parents as the source of the child's body are its owners, and she ardently asserted that she owned and controlled her own body. She joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1932, a year after her husband, Hu Yepin, an impoverished worker, poet and Communist activist, had been executed in jail by the Kuomintang. By then, Ding Ling had become well known as the author of ''Miss Sophie's Diary'' , published in 1927, in which a young woman describes her unhappiness with her life and confused romantic and sexual feelings, therefore shocking a multitude of the Chinese audience which preponderantly held semifeudal attitudes.
Deeply committed to the Communist revolutionary cause, she was placed under house arrest in Shanghai by the Kuomintang for a three year period from 1933-1936. Ironically, long after the defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist government she suffered even harsher treatment throughout her literary career because of the shifting Communist Party politics and power struggles. Always a political activist, in 1957 she was denounced as a "Rightist" and her fiction and essays were banned. She spent five years in jail during the "Cultural Revolution" and was sentenced to do manual labor on a farm for twelve years before being "rehabilitated" in 1978. In her introduction to ''Miss Sophie's Diary And Other Stories'', Ding Ling explains her indebtedness to the writers of other cultures:
:"I can say that if I have not been influenced by Western literature I would probably not have been able to write fiction, or at any rate not the kind of fiction in this collection. It is obvious that my earliest stories followed the path of Western realism....A little later, as the Chinese revolution developed, my fiction changed with the needs of the age and of the Chinese people....Literature ought to join minds together...turning ignorance into mutual understanding. Time, place and institutions cannot separate it from the friends it wins... And in 1957, a time of spiritual suffering for me, I found consolation in reading much Latin American and African literature."
A few years before her death, she was allowed to travel to the United States where she was a guest at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. In spite of the years she spent as a farm laborer and those in solitary confinement, she authored more than three-hundred works. After her "rehabilitation" many of her previously banned books such as her novel ''The Sun Shines Over The Sangan River'' were republished and translated into numerous languages. Some of her short works, spanning a fifty year period, are collected in ''I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings Of Ding Ling''.
Biography
Early life
Ding Ling was born into a formerly wealthy gentry family in Hunan province. Her father's health was poor, and he passed away when Ding was three. Ding Ling's mother, who raised her children alone while becoming a well-known educator, was Ding's role model, and she would later write an unfinished novel, titled ''Mother'', which described her mother's experiences. Following her mother's example, Ding Ling became an activist at an early age. Ding Ling early repudiated traditional Chinese family practices by refusing to marry her cousin who had been chosen to become her husband. She rejected the commonly accepted view that parents as the source of the child's body are its owners, and she ardently asserted that she owned and controlled her own body. She joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1932, a year after her husband, Hu Yepin, an impoverished worker, poet and Communist activist, had been executed in jail by the Kuomintang. By then, Ding Ling had become well known as the author of ''Miss Sophie's Diary'' , published in 1927, in which a young woman describes her unhappiness with her life and confused romantic and sexual feelings, therefore shocking a multitude of the Chinese audience which preponderantly held semifeudal attitudes.
Political persecution
Deeply committed to the Communist revolutionary cause, she was placed under house arrest in Shanghai by the Kuomintang for a three year period from 1933-1936. Ironically, long after the defeat of Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist government she suffered even harsher treatment throughout her literary career because of the shifting Communist Party politics and power struggles. Always a political activist, in 1957 she was denounced as a "Rightist" and her fiction and essays were banned. She spent five years in jail during the "Cultural Revolution" and was sentenced to do manual labor on a farm for twelve years before being "rehabilitated" in 1978. In her introduction to ''Miss Sophie's Diary And Other Stories'', Ding Ling explains her indebtedness to the writers of other cultures:
:"I can say that if I have not been influenced by Western literature I would probably not have been able to write fiction, or at any rate not the kind of fiction in this collection. It is obvious that my earliest stories followed the path of Western realism....A little later, as the Chinese revolution developed, my fiction changed with the needs of the age and of the Chinese people....Literature ought to join minds together...turning ignorance into mutual understanding. Time, place and institutions cannot separate it from the friends it wins... And in 1957, a time of spiritual suffering for me, I found consolation in reading much Latin American and African literature."
Later years
A few years before her death, she was allowed to travel to the United States where she was a guest at the University of Iowa's International Writing Program. In spite of the years she spent as a farm laborer and those in solitary confinement, she authored more than three-hundred works. After her "rehabilitation" many of her previously banned books such as her novel ''The Sun Shines Over The Sangan River'' were republished and translated into numerous languages. Some of her short works, spanning a fifty year period, are collected in ''I Myself Am A Woman: Selected Writings Of Ding Ling''.
Anna Sun
Anna Xiao Dong Sun is a writer, critic and sociologist.
Anna Xiao Dong Sun was born in Beijing in 1971. Her mother was a writer and editor, and her father was a translator of French literature. Her parents divorced when she was a child. Anna left Beijing to join her mother in San Francisco in 1992. She started writing fiction in Chinese since she was a teenager, but didn’t publish until 1995, while she was a student at UC Berkeley. She submitted her short story "The Blue Notebook" to ''Today'', a journal edited by the dissident poet Bei Dao , and it was discovered by the editor Wang Yu from a pile of unsolicited manuscripts.
"The Blue Notebook", a story about the denial of passion, came out in ''Today'' a few months later , then a journal published by Oxford University Press. It was later included in two anthologies: ''Fissures: Chinese Writing Today'' and ''The Season of Memory'' . The English version is translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-Chun Lin.
She completed her first collection of stories and personal essays in Chinese, ''The Blue Notebook'' , while she was a graduate student at Princeton University. It was published in 2001 by Shanghai Literature and Arts Press . Another blind submission, it was published only one year after the editor-in-chief Chen Baoping received the overseas manuscript. The book has received excellent reviews, both in national newspapers and literary journals. Many of the pieces in the book have been posted by readers on various websites, particularly the essay "The Loneliness of Eileen Chang" .
Anna Sun started writing fiction in English in the late 1990s, and her first story in English, "The Garden", inspired by Henry James’ ''The Ambassadors'', was published in ''Harvard Review'' . Her literary criticism has appeared in ''The London Review of Books'' . Her essays on Ezra Pound, "The Man That Is Waiting: Remarks on Li Po’s ‘Chokan Shin’ and Pound’s 'River-Merchant’s Wife'", first appeared in the journal ''Paideuma'' , and can be found in the forthcoming anthology ''Ezra Pound: Critical Assessments'' , edited by Dorsey Kleitz.
As a sociologist, Anna is trained at UC Berkeley and Princeton University. In 2003-04 she was a Mellon Dissertation Fellow at the Institute for Historical Research at the University of London, and in 2005-06 she was a Marilyn Yarbrough Dissertation Fellow at Kenyon College. Her dissertation deals with the sociology of religion and sociology of knowledge.
Among the many literary honors and award that Anna Sun has received are: Barber Fellowship, Squaw Valley Community of Writers Conference ; Vogelstein Foundation Grant for Fiction ; Mesa Refuge Fellowship ; MacDowell Colony Fellowship ; MacDowell/Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellowship .
Anna Sun is currently teaching at Kenyon College. She also serves as a Consulting Editor for ''The Kenyon Review''.
* ''The Blue Notebook'' .
* ''Fissures: Chinese Writing Today'' .
Anna Xiao Dong Sun was born in Beijing in 1971. Her mother was a writer and editor, and her father was a translator of French literature. Her parents divorced when she was a child. Anna left Beijing to join her mother in San Francisco in 1992. She started writing fiction in Chinese since she was a teenager, but didn’t publish until 1995, while she was a student at UC Berkeley. She submitted her short story "The Blue Notebook" to ''Today'', a journal edited by the dissident poet Bei Dao , and it was discovered by the editor Wang Yu from a pile of unsolicited manuscripts.
"The Blue Notebook", a story about the denial of passion, came out in ''Today'' a few months later , then a journal published by Oxford University Press. It was later included in two anthologies: ''Fissures: Chinese Writing Today'' and ''The Season of Memory'' . The English version is translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-Chun Lin.
She completed her first collection of stories and personal essays in Chinese, ''The Blue Notebook'' , while she was a graduate student at Princeton University. It was published in 2001 by Shanghai Literature and Arts Press . Another blind submission, it was published only one year after the editor-in-chief Chen Baoping received the overseas manuscript. The book has received excellent reviews, both in national newspapers and literary journals. Many of the pieces in the book have been posted by readers on various websites, particularly the essay "The Loneliness of Eileen Chang" .
Anna Sun started writing fiction in English in the late 1990s, and her first story in English, "The Garden", inspired by Henry James’ ''The Ambassadors'', was published in ''Harvard Review'' . Her literary criticism has appeared in ''The London Review of Books'' . Her essays on Ezra Pound, "The Man That Is Waiting: Remarks on Li Po’s ‘Chokan Shin’ and Pound’s 'River-Merchant’s Wife'", first appeared in the journal ''Paideuma'' , and can be found in the forthcoming anthology ''Ezra Pound: Critical Assessments'' , edited by Dorsey Kleitz.
As a sociologist, Anna is trained at UC Berkeley and Princeton University. In 2003-04 she was a Mellon Dissertation Fellow at the Institute for Historical Research at the University of London, and in 2005-06 she was a Marilyn Yarbrough Dissertation Fellow at Kenyon College. Her dissertation deals with the sociology of religion and sociology of knowledge.
Among the many literary honors and award that Anna Sun has received are: Barber Fellowship, Squaw Valley Community of Writers Conference ; Vogelstein Foundation Grant for Fiction ; Mesa Refuge Fellowship ; MacDowell Colony Fellowship ; MacDowell/Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellowship .
Anna Sun is currently teaching at Kenyon College. She also serves as a Consulting Editor for ''The Kenyon Review''.
Selected Bibliography
* ''The Blue Notebook'' .
* ''Fissures: Chinese Writing Today'' .
Yun Wang
Yun Wang is a poet and professor of astrophysics specializing in . She is originally from , a small town near Zunyi, in Guizhou Province, China. Her poetry books include ''The Carp'' from Bull Thistle Press, and from Story Line Press.
Yun Wang received a bachelor's degree in physics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, after which she came to the United States and obtained her master's and doctorate Carnegie Mellon University. Currently Associate Professor in the University of Oklahoma's Department of Physics and Astronomy, she has published sixty-seven refereed papers, most recently specializing on probing the dark energy in the universe, with particular attention to the use of supernovae and galaxy redshift surveys as cosmological probes, studies of the Cosmic microwave background anisotropy, and the measurement of cosmological parameters.
She is notably active as the Principal Investigator of the JEDI Collaboration , a candidate implementation of the NASA-DOE Joint Dark Energy Mission .
Her four most-cited recent papers are the following :
*
*
*
*
Professional work in astrophysics
Yun Wang received a bachelor's degree in physics from Tsinghua University in Beijing, after which she came to the United States and obtained her master's and doctorate Carnegie Mellon University. Currently Associate Professor in the University of Oklahoma's Department of Physics and Astronomy, she has published sixty-seven refereed papers, most recently specializing on probing the dark energy in the universe, with particular attention to the use of supernovae and galaxy redshift surveys as cosmological probes, studies of the Cosmic microwave background anisotropy, and the measurement of cosmological parameters.
She is notably active as the Principal Investigator of the JEDI Collaboration , a candidate implementation of the NASA-DOE Joint Dark Energy Mission .
Her four most-cited recent papers are the following :
*
*
*
*
Woeser
Woeser is a Chinese poet and essayist of origins.
Woeser was born in Lhasa where her father was a soldier in the People's Liberation Army; when she was a small child, her family relocated to the Kham area of western Sichuan province. In 1988, she graduated from Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu with a degree in Chinese literature. She worked as a reporter in Kardzé and later in Lhasa and has lived in Beijing since 2003 as a result of political problems. Woeser is married to Wang Lixiong, a Chinese author who frequently writes about Tibet. According to Reporters sans frontières, Woeser "is one of the few Tibetan authors and poets to write in Chinese."
Woeser is the author of a book, ''Notes on Tibet'' . The Tibet Information Network quotes unnamed sources that the book was banned by the government around September 2003, but at least now it would be widely available in China.
According to UNPO, shortly after the alleged ban Woeser was also fired from her job and lost her status with her work unit. Radio Free Asia reported that she continued to post a variety of poems and articles to her two blogs: Maroon Map , which, according to the author, was visited primarily by Tibetans, and the Woeser blog '''', which was visited primarily by Han Chinese. According to RFA, on July 28, 2006, both blogs were closed by order of the government, apparently in response to postings in which she expressed birthday greetings to the and touched on other sensitive topics. Woeser stated that she would continue writing and speaking.
During the , Woeser and her Chinese husband were put under house arrest after speaking to reporters.
In 2007 Tsering Woeser was granted the Norwegian Authors Union awards Freedom of Expression Prize.
* 2008 "Mémoire interdite. Témoignages sur la Révolution culturelle au Tibet", éd. Bleu de Chine, trad. Li Zhang & Bernard Bourrit.
* ''Shājié'' 《杀劫》 , ISBN 9867291840.
* ''Xīzàng Bǐjì'' 《西藏笔记》 , ISBN 7536038313. Also published in Taiwan as ''Míng wéi Xīzàng de shī'' 《名为西藏的诗》 , ISBN 9867291905.
* ''Bākuò Jiē de cāngsāng'' 八廓街的沧桑, in: Jīn Zhìguó 金志国 : ''Xīzàng dāngdài lǚxíngjì'' 西藏当代旅行记 , ISBN 7-223-01587-X.
* ''Jiànghóngsè de Nímǎ Cìrén'' 绛红色的尼玛次仁, in: Mǎ Míngbó 马明博, Xiāo Yáo 肖瑶 : ''Wénhuà míngjiā huà fóyuán'' 文化名家话佛缘 , ISBN 7801664159.* ''Jiànghóngsè de dìtú'' 《绛红色的地图》 , ISBN 9867762045; , ISBN 7503222476.
* ''Xīzàng zài shàng'' 《西藏在上》.
Biography
Woeser was born in Lhasa where her father was a soldier in the People's Liberation Army; when she was a small child, her family relocated to the Kham area of western Sichuan province. In 1988, she graduated from Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu with a degree in Chinese literature. She worked as a reporter in Kardzé and later in Lhasa and has lived in Beijing since 2003 as a result of political problems. Woeser is married to Wang Lixiong, a Chinese author who frequently writes about Tibet. According to Reporters sans frontières, Woeser "is one of the few Tibetan authors and poets to write in Chinese."
Career
Woeser is the author of a book, ''Notes on Tibet'' . The Tibet Information Network quotes unnamed sources that the book was banned by the government around September 2003, but at least now it would be widely available in China.
According to UNPO, shortly after the alleged ban Woeser was also fired from her job and lost her status with her work unit. Radio Free Asia reported that she continued to post a variety of poems and articles to her two blogs: Maroon Map , which, according to the author, was visited primarily by Tibetans, and the Woeser blog '''', which was visited primarily by Han Chinese. According to RFA, on July 28, 2006, both blogs were closed by order of the government, apparently in response to postings in which she expressed birthday greetings to the and touched on other sensitive topics. Woeser stated that she would continue writing and speaking.
During the , Woeser and her Chinese husband were put under house arrest after speaking to reporters.
Awards
In 2007 Tsering Woeser was granted the Norwegian Authors Union awards Freedom of Expression Prize.
Works
* 2008 "Mémoire interdite. Témoignages sur la Révolution culturelle au Tibet", éd. Bleu de Chine, trad. Li Zhang & Bernard Bourrit.
* ''Shājié'' 《杀劫》 , ISBN 9867291840.
* ''Xīzàng Bǐjì'' 《西藏笔记》 , ISBN 7536038313. Also published in Taiwan as ''Míng wéi Xīzàng de shī'' 《名为西藏的诗》 , ISBN 9867291905.
* ''Bākuò Jiē de cāngsāng'' 八廓街的沧桑, in: Jīn Zhìguó 金志国 : ''Xīzàng dāngdài lǚxíngjì'' 西藏当代旅行记 , ISBN 7-223-01587-X.
* ''Jiànghóngsè de Nímǎ Cìrén'' 绛红色的尼玛次仁, in: Mǎ Míngbó 马明博, Xiāo Yáo 肖瑶 : ''Wénhuà míngjiā huà fóyuán'' 文化名家话佛缘 , ISBN 7801664159.* ''Jiànghóngsè de dìtú'' 《绛红色的地图》 , ISBN 9867762045; , ISBN 7503222476.
* ''Xīzàng zài shàng'' 《西藏在上》.
Wang Xufeng
Wang Xufeng , is an influential and tea expert. She is a recipient of the most prestigious Mao Dun Literature Prize in China.
Wang's ancestral hometown was in Tongshan, Jiangsu Province. February 1955, Wang was born in Pinghu, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. 1978~1982, Wang studied history at the Department of History, Hangzhou University . After graduation, Wang taught at Hangzhou 14th Middle School as a teacher. She aslo worked in a Hangzhou local factory of radio technology. Wang then joined Zhejiang Labours Association, Zhejiang Tea Museum, and Zhejiang Writers Association.
Wang currently is a researcher at Zhejiang Tea Museum. She also teaches at Zhejiang Forestry University. She is the Vice-president of Zhejiang Writers Association.
Wang's most famous work is ''Three Trilogies of Teamen'', by which she won the 5th Mao Dun Literature Prize. On November 11th 2000 in Tongxiang Zhejiang Province where Mao Dun was born, she received the prize.
*《茶人三部曲》
** 《南方有嘉木》
** 《不夜之候》
** 《筑草为城》
Wang also did many studies on tea and tea culture, such as:
* 《茶文化通论》
Career
Wang's ancestral hometown was in Tongshan, Jiangsu Province. February 1955, Wang was born in Pinghu, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. 1978~1982, Wang studied history at the Department of History, Hangzhou University . After graduation, Wang taught at Hangzhou 14th Middle School as a teacher. She aslo worked in a Hangzhou local factory of radio technology. Wang then joined Zhejiang Labours Association, Zhejiang Tea Museum, and Zhejiang Writers Association.
Wang currently is a researcher at Zhejiang Tea Museum. She also teaches at Zhejiang Forestry University. She is the Vice-president of Zhejiang Writers Association.
Works
Wang's most famous work is ''Three Trilogies of Teamen'', by which she won the 5th Mao Dun Literature Prize. On November 11th 2000 in Tongxiang Zhejiang Province where Mao Dun was born, she received the prize.
*《茶人三部曲》
** 《南方有嘉木》
** 《不夜之候》
** 《筑草为城》
Wang also did many studies on tea and tea culture, such as:
* 《茶文化通论》
Tie Ning
Tie Ning is a Chinese author born in 1957 in Peking, China, with her ancestral hometown in Hebei Province. Her works include short stories, "Ah, Xiangxue"《哦，香雪》, "The Red Shirt Without Buttons"《沒有紐扣的紅襯衫》, "June's Big Topic"《六月的話題》, "Wheat Straw Stack"《麥秸垛》, "Cotton Stack"《棉花垛》, "The Village Road Takes Me Home", "Rose Door"《玫瑰門》, "How Long is Forever"《永遠有多遠》 and "Da Yu Nv"《大浴女》 .
In 1975, after graduation from high school in Baoding, Tie Ning went to Hebei Province to experience rural life. In 1979, she returned to Baoding and worked in the Baoding Branch of the Chinese Federation of Art and Literature as novel editor. In 1984, she worked in the Creative Writing Workshop of Hebei Province. Now she is the chairperson of the Writers Association of China, a position no woman ever held.
Tie Ning started publishing her works since 1975. In 1982, her short story "Ah, Xiangxue"《哦，香雪》 won a national award. In 1984, her medium-length novels "The Red Shirt Without Buttons"《沒有紐扣的紅襯衫》 and short story "June's Big Topic"《六月的話題》 won national awards. Since 1980, Tie Ning has published "Path in the Night" and other collections of short stories and novellas. Her "Wheat Straw Stack"《麥秸垛》 won an award of the 1986/1987 "Middle-length Novels Offprint"《中篇小說選刊》.
Works in her early stage mainly depicted ordinary people and daily life, through which exquisitely portrayed characters' inner world, and reflecting people's dreams and pursuit, contradiction and suffering in their own era.
In 1986 and 1988, she published middle-length novels "Wheat Straw Stack"《麥秸垛》 and "Cotton Stack"《棉花垛》 respectively, both reflecting ancient history and culture, and concerning female's existence. After 1986, her novels obviously changed towards reflection on traditional Chinese cultures, with polysemous themes and varied techniques. In 1988, she wrote her first full-length novel "Rose Door"《玫瑰門》, in which she changed her harmonious and ideal poetic style, and displayed the dark side of life through competition for existence among women in several generations.
"Ah, Xiangxue"《哦，香雪》
This is a story about a pure and pretty country girl, Xiangxue, "fragrant snow" in Chinese. Xiangxue lives in a village in mountains. Every day, a train from the outside of the mountains stops at the village just for a minute. Xiangxue and other country girls take a small basket of eggs to the train when it stops and exchange them for things they because they can't get what they need within the village. Xiangxue carries the basket onto the train, and when she sees a pencil box beside a city girl of her age, she dreams to have it without hesitation. She offers her full basket of eggs for it and receives it. It opens up a door to the outside world for her. The story shows the country girl's simplicity and her yearning for civilization.
"The Village Road Takes Me Home"
Tie Ning is critical of the masculinity model for grounding subjectivity on opposition to the power of the party/state and assuming responsibility over women's lives. This model is concretized in two male characters who both want to marry the female protagonist because they feel responsible for her earlier marriage to a peasant, which left her a widow and prevented her from returning to the city after the policy of sending educated youths to rural China ended.
In her story of the female protagonist's choice between the two, which entails the significant and ideologically loaded choice between the city and the countryside, Tie Ning reveals the complicity of the masculinity model of subjectivity in the party/state's dominant ideology despite its apparent oppositional stance. In its place, she offers the protagonist's feminine understanding of subjectivity as determining one's life-course based on one's own needs, desires, and abilities rather than with reference to-either in opposition or compliance-the party-state and its ideology.
"How Long is Forever"《永遠有多遠》
Bai Daxing is a typical girl brought up in Beijing's Hutongs. She is a kind girl who is always willing to offer help to everybody around her without any consideration of her own interests. But the innocent Bai is cheated once and again by the friends who have received her help, and even her whole heart. The people she trusts most are making use of her purity and warm-heartedness, which leaves Bai with less and less… Bai's personality does not seem to be in accordance with the times. Tie uses Bai to emphasize how far a modern society is from forever.
"Da Yu Nv" 《大浴女》
Tie Ning's semi-autobiographical novel, illustrates how difficult it is for Chinese writers to leave aside national allegory. Set in the world of writing and publishing, the novel relates the story of a young woman and two older men who are both in love with her. The narrative alternates between first- and third-person as the protagonist connects her love affair to her memories of her teenage years, showing how she achieves strength through the interweaving of her private and her public lives. In this rich and complex narrative, the author's strong sense of morality serves both to sublimate individual desire and also resurrect the collective history of the recent past.
Background
In 1975, after graduation from high school in Baoding, Tie Ning went to Hebei Province to experience rural life. In 1979, she returned to Baoding and worked in the Baoding Branch of the Chinese Federation of Art and Literature as novel editor. In 1984, she worked in the Creative Writing Workshop of Hebei Province. Now she is the chairperson of the Writers Association of China, a position no woman ever held.
Awards
Tie Ning started publishing her works since 1975. In 1982, her short story "Ah, Xiangxue"《哦，香雪》 won a national award. In 1984, her medium-length novels "The Red Shirt Without Buttons"《沒有紐扣的紅襯衫》 and short story "June's Big Topic"《六月的話題》 won national awards. Since 1980, Tie Ning has published "Path in the Night" and other collections of short stories and novellas. Her "Wheat Straw Stack"《麥秸垛》 won an award of the 1986/1987 "Middle-length Novels Offprint"《中篇小說選刊》.
Style
Works in her early stage mainly depicted ordinary people and daily life, through which exquisitely portrayed characters' inner world, and reflecting people's dreams and pursuit, contradiction and suffering in their own era.
In 1986 and 1988, she published middle-length novels "Wheat Straw Stack"《麥秸垛》 and "Cotton Stack"《棉花垛》 respectively, both reflecting ancient history and culture, and concerning female's existence. After 1986, her novels obviously changed towards reflection on traditional Chinese cultures, with polysemous themes and varied techniques. In 1988, she wrote her first full-length novel "Rose Door"《玫瑰門》, in which she changed her harmonious and ideal poetic style, and displayed the dark side of life through competition for existence among women in several generations.
Works
"Ah, Xiangxue"《哦，香雪》
This is a story about a pure and pretty country girl, Xiangxue, "fragrant snow" in Chinese. Xiangxue lives in a village in mountains. Every day, a train from the outside of the mountains stops at the village just for a minute. Xiangxue and other country girls take a small basket of eggs to the train when it stops and exchange them for things they because they can't get what they need within the village. Xiangxue carries the basket onto the train, and when she sees a pencil box beside a city girl of her age, she dreams to have it without hesitation. She offers her full basket of eggs for it and receives it. It opens up a door to the outside world for her. The story shows the country girl's simplicity and her yearning for civilization.
"The Village Road Takes Me Home"
Tie Ning is critical of the masculinity model for grounding subjectivity on opposition to the power of the party/state and assuming responsibility over women's lives. This model is concretized in two male characters who both want to marry the female protagonist because they feel responsible for her earlier marriage to a peasant, which left her a widow and prevented her from returning to the city after the policy of sending educated youths to rural China ended.
In her story of the female protagonist's choice between the two, which entails the significant and ideologically loaded choice between the city and the countryside, Tie Ning reveals the complicity of the masculinity model of subjectivity in the party/state's dominant ideology despite its apparent oppositional stance. In its place, she offers the protagonist's feminine understanding of subjectivity as determining one's life-course based on one's own needs, desires, and abilities rather than with reference to-either in opposition or compliance-the party-state and its ideology.
"How Long is Forever"《永遠有多遠》
Bai Daxing is a typical girl brought up in Beijing's Hutongs. She is a kind girl who is always willing to offer help to everybody around her without any consideration of her own interests. But the innocent Bai is cheated once and again by the friends who have received her help, and even her whole heart. The people she trusts most are making use of her purity and warm-heartedness, which leaves Bai with less and less… Bai's personality does not seem to be in accordance with the times. Tie uses Bai to emphasize how far a modern society is from forever.
"Da Yu Nv" 《大浴女》
Tie Ning's semi-autobiographical novel, illustrates how difficult it is for Chinese writers to leave aside national allegory. Set in the world of writing and publishing, the novel relates the story of a young woman and two older men who are both in love with her. The narrative alternates between first- and third-person as the protagonist connects her love affair to her memories of her teenage years, showing how she achieves strength through the interweaving of her private and her public lives. In this rich and complex narrative, the author's strong sense of morality serves both to sublimate individual desire and also resurrect the collective history of the recent past.
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