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Born in 1954, Wang Anyi is one of contemporary China’s most influential and innovative writers. Wang is currently the chairperson of the Shanghai Writers’ Association. She has written more than five million Chinese characters , winning important awards from both home and abroad dozens of times.

Wang is the co-author of the screenplay of Chen Kaige‘s film Temptress Moon, and has also had numerous books translated into English, including Baotown (1985), Lapse of Time (1988), Love in a Small Town (1988), Love on a Barren Mountain (1991), and Brocade Valley (1992). Her most challenging novel, Changhen Ge (Song of Everlasting Sorrow , 1996), is a beautifully written epic tracing the trials and tribulations of a former Shanghai beauty pageant winner from the 1940s to the present.

Wang’s work is particularly interesting from a feminist perspective. For instance, some of her later works, particular her trilogy of “love” novels from the late 1980s (Love in a Small Town, Love on a Barren Mountain, and [Love in a] Brocade Valley ), have been striking and controversial in imaginatively exploring feminine subjectivity and sexuality.

Chairperson of the Writers’ Association

Wang was elected as the seventh chairperson of the Shanghai Writers’ Association on December 6, 2001.

“I am fearful and even in trepidation over this appointment. Shanghai is a city that boasted Lu Xun and Ba Jin (two famous Chinese writers). I am not even a pupil of these masters. … I don’t even know how to face this new post. I was used to the relatively solitude world where I wrote, but now I have been pushed back to reality,” she said, adding, “Writing is a job I am good at. Without writing, I guess I am a person who does not deserve much attention.” This is typical Wang-style monologue, low-keyed, poetic, and sober.’

However, Wang is not a writer leading a secluded life; she also likes to spend her spare time with others. “Writing is a lonely business. Especially today, when the market is gradually turning literature into product, the more a writer maintains a serious attitude in writing, reading, and meditating, the lonelier he or she become. So let’s unite together, hand in hand, to get through this transition period.”

In the market-oriented society, literature is dividing into different branches. “The popular literature is well on its way in the market process, while the ‘less-accepted’ serious literature has been pushed aside,” Wang said

“It is very normal that serious literature is a bit lonely, but what worries me is the marketable and fashionable mass literature, which has influenced the young people’s attitude towards literature. They don’t really see the delight, attitude, and aesthetic pursuit of real literature,” Wang noted, warning, “The criteria of a good work is gradually being lost.”

“At this moment, the literature spirit is critical. A city with or without literature could be dramatically different. Literature could improve the artistic style of a city,” stressed Wang, adding, “Real serious writers should have their own higher standards beyond the market’s requirements. One of the most important tasks of the Writers’ Association is to provide a better environment for writing, in which the writers do not have to rush to the market.”

Clear-headed, reasonable, and independent, Wang is brimming with popular confidence.

“She is different. She does not pursue the literature posh. She does not drift with the tide. She is one of the best writers in Shanghai, or even in China,” said a member of the Shanghai Writers’ Association.

（Source: chinaculture.org）