Wang Anyi

{{Infobox writer

|name=Wang Anyi

|birth_date={{Birth date and age|1954|3|6}}

|birth_place=Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

|language=Chinese

|period=1975–present

|genre=fiction, prose

|movement=Xungen movement

|notableworks=The Song of Everlasting Sorrow (1995)

|spouse=Li Zhang (李章)

|relatives={{Unbulleted list|Ru Zhijuan, mother|Wang Xiaoping, father}}

|module={{Infobox Chinese|child=yes|t={{linktext|王|安|憶}}|s={{linktext|王|安|忆}}|p=Wáng Ānyì}}

}}

Wang Anyi (born 6 March 1954) is a Chinese writer,{{Cite book|last1=Di|first1=Bai|title=Chinese Fiction Writers, 1950-2000|last2=Lin|first2=Huang|publisher=Gale, a Cengage Company|year=2013|isbn=978-0-7876-9645-0|editor-last=Moran|editor-first=Thomas|location=Detroit, MI|language=English|chapter=Wang Anyi|editor-last2=Xu|editor-first2=(Dianna) Ye}} vice-chair of the China Writers Association since 2006, and professor in Chinese Literature at Fudan University since 2004.

Wang widely writes 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.

Early life

Wang was born in Nanjing in 1954, but moved to Shanghai with her mother when she was a year old. Her mother was the prominent writer Ru Zhijuan.{{Cite book |last=Tu |first=Hang |title=Sentimental Republic: Chinese Intellectuals and the Maoist Past |publisher=Harvard University Asia Center |year=2025 |isbn=9780674297579}}{{Rp|page=147}} Under the influence of her parents, she liked literature very much in childhood. After the Cultural Revolution, her parents were sent to labor camps. She read a large number of foreign works, Including Turgenev, Tolstoy, Gorky, Pushkin, Tazma and other writers classic works.{{Cite web|title=王安忆：扎根时代的文学之旅_半月谈网|url=http://www.banyuetan.org/chcontent/gd/sdrw/2015122/123596.shtml|access-date=2021-12-07|website=www.banyuetan.org}}

Career

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."{{cite book|last=Leung|first=Laifong|chapter=Wang Anyi: Restless Explorer|title=Morning Sun: Interviews with Chinese Writers of the Lost Generation|publisher=M.E. Sharpe|year=1994|isbn=978-1-56324-093-5|pages=177–87}}

During the lonely years in the countryside, "reading books and writing in my diary became even more precious to me". 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 ({{lang|zh|儿童时代}}).

In 1980 Wang became a professional writer, and that year received training from the China Writers Association at the Lu Xun Literary Institute. In the same year, her first reputed work -- "And the Rain Patters On" won the Beijing Literature Prize, which started her fictionalized self—Wenwen (雯雯) series stories. Her earlier works focused on individual experiences rather than the collective, politics-oriented literature advocated by the state.{{cite book|chapter=Wang Anyi|last=Wang|first=Lingzhen|pages=[https://archive.org/details/columbiacompanio00bada/page/592 592–7]|title=The Columbia Companion to Modern East Asian Literature|year=2003|publisher=Columbia University Press|editor-last=Mostow|editor-first=Joshua S.|isbn=978-0-231-11314-4|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/columbiacompanio00bada/page/592}} Her biographical stories portray emotionally-charged coming-of-age experiences of political frustrations, youthful yearnings, and the development of the private self in the context of socialist revolution.{{Rp|page=147}} 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.

A 1983 trip to Iowa City, Iowa, United States for the International Writing Program, with her mother Ru Zhijuan, 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. 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'."{{cite book|last=Ying Hong|chapter=Wang Anyi and Her Fiction|pages=[https://archive.org/details/timeisnotyetripe0000unse/page/217 217–24]|translator=Katharina A. Byrne|editor-last=Ying Bian|title=The Time Is Not Yet Ripe: Contemporary China's Best Writers and Their Stories|year=1991|publisher=Foreign Languages Press|isbn=978-7-119-00742-7|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/timeisnotyetripe0000unse/page/217}}

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." In 1996, 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. The novel made Wang's writing reached its peak, and won the most prestigious Mao Dun Literary Prize in 2000 in China. In the story, the protagonist Wang Qiyao "is a metaphor for Shanghai: she maintains her pride and her manners, despite her misery under communist rule." The novel was adapted into a film in 2005, a television series, and a stage play. The success of The Song of Everlasting Sorrow earned the reputation of Wang as the successor of Eileen Chang, and both of their writings are about the civil lives in Shanghai, which are known as Haipai (Shanghai School).

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.

Wang has been a professor at Fudan University since 2000s.[http://www.infzm.com/content/99575 王安忆教授的复旦十年] Retrieved 2017-01-14

Narrative style

Wang likes to combine history with current facts to create, and integrate historical culture 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.{{Cite web|title=《考工记》与王安忆叙事风格的延续和转变--理论评论--中国作家网|url=http://www.chinawriter.com.cn/n1/2020/0423/c404030-31685064.html|access-date=2021-12-07|website=www.chinawriter.com.cn}}

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."{{Cite book|last=Hong|first=Zicheng|title=A History of Contemporary Chinese Literature|publisher=Brill|year=2007|isbn=978-90-04-15754-5|location=Leiden, The Netherlands|pages=410|language=English|translator-last=Day|translator-first=Michael}} 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."{{Cite journal|last=Dai|first=Jinhua|date=2018-01-03|title=Wang Anyi|journal=Chinese Literature Today|volume=6|issue=2|pages=6–7|doi=10.1080/21514399.2017.1374807|s2cid=218552809|translator=Ping Zhu|doi-access=free}}

Throughout her writing career, Wang transitioned from experience-based writing to more strategic narration. In a 1991 interview, she claimed that her early works only described scenes, without the narrator's presence. Late on, she transitioned from objective narration to more subjective narration.{{Cite journal|last1=王|first1=安亿|last2=凡亚|first2=斯特|last3=秦|first3=立德|date=1991-05-21|title=从现实人生的体验到叙述策略的转型 -- 一份关于王安忆十年小时创作的访谈录|url=http://www.cqvip.com/qk/80665x/199106/1002971396.html|journal=当代作家评论|volume=1991-6|pages=28–35|via=中文科技期刊数据库}} Wang is often recognized as a feminist writer,{{Cite journal|last=张|first=浩|date=2006-07-31|title=从私人空间到公共空间 -- 论王安忆创作中的女性空间建构|url=https://d.wanfangdata.com.cn/periodical/zgwhyj200204028|journal=中国文化研究|volume=2001|issue=4|pages=159–163|via=WANFANG DATA}} 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." She says in the same interview, however, that she "cannot treat women as objects" and she "dislikes female characters that does everything to please men."

Personal life

Wang's mother, Ru Zhijuan (茹志鹃), is a novelist while her father, Wang Xiaopin (王啸平), is a playwright and director. She has an elder sister, Wang Annuo (王安诺), who is a former editor of a literary magazine and a younger brother, Wang Anwei (王安桅), who does Literary and Art research.

Wang is married to Li Zhang (李章) who is an editor of Shanghai Music Publishing House.{{Cite web|title=王安忆：文学能使人生变得有趣_中国作家网|url=http://www.chinawriter.com.cn/2012/2012-10-19/144366.html|access-date=2021-12-07|website=www.chinawriter.com.cn}}

Works translated into English

Year	Chinese title	Translated English title	Translator(s)
class="wikitable"
1979	雨，沙沙沙	"And the Rain Patters On"	Michael Day
1980	小院琐记	"Life in a Small Courtyard"{{cite book\|title=Lapse of Time\|year=1988\|publisher=China Books\|isbn=978-0-8351-2032-6\|url-access=registration\|url=https://archive.org/details/lapseoftime00wang}}	Hu Zhihui
rowspan=3\|1981	墙基	"The Base of the Wall"	Daniel Bryant
朋友	"Friends"{{cite book\|title=The Rose Colored Dinner: New Works by Contemporary Chinese Women Writers\|year=1988\|publisher=Joint Publishing\|isbn=978-962-04-0615-7}}	Nancy Lee
本次列车终点	"The Destination"	Yu Fanqin
rowspan=2\|1982	流逝	Lapse of Time	Howard Goldblatt
舞台小世界	"The Stage, a Miniature World"	Song Shouquan
rowspan=2\|1984	人人之间	"Between Themselves"	Gladys Yang
话说老秉	"Speaking of Old Bing"Chinese Literature, Autumn 1989.	Chad Phelan
rowspan=6\|1985	我为什么写作	"Why I Write"{{cite book\|title=Chinese Writers on Writing\|year=2010\|publisher=Trinity University Press\|isbn=978-1-59534-063-4}}	Michael Berry
小鲍庄	Baotown{{cite book\|title=Baotown\|publisher=Viking Press\|year=1989\|isbn=978-0-670-82622-3}}	Martha Avery
母亲	"Mother"{{cite journal \|last1=Wang \|first1=Anyi \|title=Mother \|journal=Frontiers of Literary Studies in China \|date=15 March 2018 \|volume=12 \|issue=1 \|pages=5–19 \|doi=10.3868/s010-007-018-0002-5 }}	Todd Foley
rowspan=2\|老康回来	"Lao Kang Came Back"{{cite book\|title=Spring Bamboo: A Collection of Contemporary Chinese Short Stories\|publisher=Random House\|year=1989\|isbn=978-0-394-56582-8\|url=https://archive.org/details/springbamboocoll00jean}}	\|Jeanne Tai
"Lao Kang Is Back"{{cite book\|title=The Time Is Not Yet Ripe: Contemporary China's Best Writers and Their Stories\|year=1991\|publisher=Foreign Languages Press\|isbn=978-7-119-00742-7\|url-access=registration\|url=https://archive.org/details/timeisnotyetripe0000unse}}	Denis C. Mair
阿跷传略	"The Story of Ah Qiao"	rowspan=3\|Yawtsong Lee{{cite book\|title=The Little Restaurant\|year=2010\|publisher=Better Link Press\|isbn=978-1-60220-225-2}}
rowspan=6\|1986	阿芳的灯	"Ah Fang's Light"
rowspan=2\|鸠雀一战	"The Nest Fight"
"Ah Fang's Lamp"The Book of Shanghai, Comma Press, 2020.	Helen Wang
"Birds Fighting for a Nest"Renditions (39), Spring 1993.	Nigel Bedford
名旦之口	"The Mouth of the Famous Female Impersonator"Renditions (27 & 28), 1987.	Zhu Zhiyu, Janice Wickeri
荒山之恋	Love on a Barren Mountain{{cite book\|title=Love on a Barren Mountain\|publisher=The Chinese University of Hong Kong\|isbn=978-962-7255-09-3\|year=1991}}	rowspan=2\|Eva Hung
小城之恋	Love in a Small Town{{cite book\|title=Love in a Small Town\|publisher=The Chinese University of Hong Kong\|isbn=978-962-7255-03-1\|year=1988\|url=https://archive.org/details/loveinsmalltown00wang}}
rowspan=2\|1987	锦绣谷之恋	Brocade Valley{{cite book\|title=Brocade Valley\|publisher=New Directions Publishing\|year=1992\|isbn=978-0-8112-1224-3\|url=https://archive.org/details/brocadevalley00wang}}	Bonnie S. McDougall, Chen Maiping
面对自己	"Needed: A Spirit of Courageous Self-Examination"{{cite book\|title=Modern Chinese Writers: Self-Portrayals\|year=1992\|isbn=978-0-87332-817-3\|publisher=M. E. Sharpe}}	\|Ellen Lai-shan Yeung
1988	女作家的自我	"A Woman Writer's Sense of Self"{{cite book\|title=Years of Sadness\|publisher=Cornell University\|year=2009\|isbn=978-1-933947-47-1}}	Wang Lingzhen, Mary Ann O'Donnell
rowspan=2\|1989	rowspan=2\|弟兄们	rowspan=2\|"Brothers"	Diana B. Kingsbury{{cite book\|title=I Wish I Were a Wolf: The New Voice in Chinese Women's Literature\|year=1994\|publisher=New World Press\|isbn=978-7-80005-124-1\|url=https://archive.org/details/iwishiwerewolfne0000unse}}
Jingyuan Zhang{{cite book\|title=Red Is Not the Only Color: Contemporary Chinese Fiction on Love and Sex Between Women, Collected Stories\|year=2001\|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield\|isbn=978-0-7425-1137-8}}
rowspan=2\|1991	\|妙妙	"Miaomiao"{{cite book\|title=Six Contemporary Chinese Women Writers (IV)\|year=1995\|publisher=Chinese Literature Press\|isbn=978-7-5071-0297-0\|url=https://archive.org/details/sixcontemporaryc00chinrich}}	Don J. Cohn
乌托邦诗篇	"Utopian Verses"	Wang Lingzhen, Mary Ann O'Donnell
1995	长恨歌	The Song of Everlasting Sorrow	Michael Berry, Susan Chan Egan
rowspan=2\|1996	姊妹们	"Sisters"{{cite book\|title=Dragonflies: Fiction by Chinese Women in the Twentieth Century\|year=2003\|publisher=Cornell University\|isbn=978-1-885445-15-5}}	Ihor Pidhainy, Xiao-miao Lan
我爱比尔	“I Love Bill" (excerpt){{cite journal \|last1=Wang \|first1=Anyi \|title=I Love Bill \|journal=Frontiers of Literary Studies in China \|volume=12 \|issue=1 \|pages=43–65 \|doi=10.3868/so10-007-018-0004-9\|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 }}	Todd Foley
1997	文工团	”The Troupe" (excerpt){{cite journal \|last1=Wang \|first1=Anyi \|title=The Troupe \|journal=Frontiers of Literary Studies in China \|date=2018 \|volume=12 \|issue=4 \|pages=645–673 \|doi=10.3868/s010-007-018-0030-2}}	Todd Foley
rowspan=6\|1998	忧伤的年代	"Years of Sadness"	Wang Lingzhen, Mary Ann O'Donnell
丧钟为谁而鸣	"For Whom the Bell Tolls"{{cite book\|title=One China, Many Paths\|year=2003\|publisher=Verso Books\|isbn=978-1-85984-537-0}}	Gao Jin
天仙配	“Match Made in Heaven"{{cite journal \|last1=Wang \|first1=Anyi \|title=Match Made in Heaven \|journal=Frontiers of Literary Studies in China \|volume=12 \|issue=1 \|pages=20–42 \|doi=10.3868/so10-007-018-0003-2\|doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 }}	Todd Foley
遗民	"Inhabitants of a Vintage Era"	rowspan=3\|Yawtsong Lee
大学生	"The Grand Student"
小饭店	"The Little Restaurant"
rowspan=7\|1999	rowspan=2\|喜宴	"Wedding Banquet"{{cite book\|title=Street Wizards and Other New Folklore\|year=2009\|publisher=Foreign Languages Press\|isbn=978-7-119-05749-1}}	Yuvonne Yee
"A Nuptial Banquet"	rowspan=3\|Yawtsong Lee
开会	"The Meeting"
rowspan=2\|花园的小红	"Xiao Hong of the Village of Huayuan"
"Little Rouge of the Garden Village"Chinese Literature, September–October 2000.	Wang Mingjie
街灯底下	"Under the Street Lights"Renditions (69), Spring 2008.	Shin Yong Robson
艺人之死	"The Death of an Artist"{{cite book\|title=The Mystified Boat: Postmodern Stories from China\|publisher=University of Hawaiʻi Press\|year=2003\|isbn=978-0-8248-2799-1}}	rowspan=2\|Hu Ying
rowspan=2\|2000	王汉芳	"Wang Hanfang"Words Without Borders, April 2008.
富萍	Fu Ping{{cite book \|last1=Wang \|first1=Anyi \|title=Fu Ping \|date=2019 \|publisher=Columbia University Press \|location=New York \|isbn=978-0231193238}}	Howard Goldblatt
2001	民工刘建华	"Liu Jianhua the Migrant Worker"{{cite book\|title=Under the Eaves: Selected Short Stories by Contemporary Writers from Shanghai(I)\|publisher=Better Link Press\|year=2008\|isbn=978-1-60220-207-8}}	Sylvia Yu, Benjamin Chang, Chris Malone
rowspan=3\|2002	投我以木桃，报之以琼瑶	"A Peach Was Presented Me, I Returned a Fine Jade"	Gao Jin
云低处	"In the Belly of the Fog"{{cite book\|title=Keep Running, Little Brother\|year=2014\|publisher=Foreign Languages Press\|isbn=978-7-119-09311-6}}	Canaan Morse
闺中	"Maiden Days in the Boudoir"{{cite book\|title=How Far Is Forever and More Stories by Women Writers\|year=2008\|publisher=Foreign Languages Press\|isbn=978-7-119-05436-0}}	Wang Zhiguang
rowspan=3\|2003	姊妹行	"A Girls' Trip"{{cite journal \|last1=Wang \|first1=Anyi \|title=A Girls' Trip \|journal=Frontiers of Literary Studies in China \|date=15 June 2019 \|volume=13 \|issue=2 \|pages=262–297 \|doi=10.3868/s010-008-019-0014-0}}	Todd Foley
rowspan=2\|发廊情话	"Confidences in a Hair Salon"{{cite book\|title=The Great Masque and More Stories of Life in the City\|year=2008\|publisher=Foreign Languages Press\|isbn=978-7-119-05437-7}}	Shi Xiaojing
"Love Talk at Hairdresser's"Renditions (86), Autumn 2016.	Hui L. Glennie, John R. Glennie
2007	救命车	"The Rescue Truck"{{cite journal \|last1=Wang \|first1=Anyi \|title=The Rescue Truck \|journal=Frontiers of Literary Studies in China \|date=15 June 2019 \|volume=13 \|issue=2 \|pages=298–311 \|doi=10.3868/s010-008-019-0015-7}}	Todd Foley
rowspan=2\|2008	黑弄堂	"The Dark Alley"{{cite book\|title=A Voice from the Beyond\|year=2014\|publisher=Foreign Languages Press\|isbn=978-7-119-09309-3}}	Canaan Morse
骄傲的皮匠	"The Sanctimonious Cobbler"{{cite book\|title=By the River: Seven Contemporary Chinese Novellas\|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press\|year=2016\|isbn=978-0-8061-5404-6}}	Andrea Lingenfelter

Major awards

1982: 4th National Short Story Prize, "The Destination"
1983: 2nd National Novella Prize, Lapse of Time
1987: 4th National Novella Prize, Baotown
2000: 5th Mao Dun Literature Prize, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow
2004: 3rd Lu Xun Literary Prize, "Confidences in a Hair Salon"
2012: 4th Dream of the Red Chamber Award, Scent of Heaven ({{lang|zh|天香}})
2013: France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres[https://web.archive.org/web/20170116160813/http://news.xinhuanet.com/2013-09/29/c_125466219.htm 王安忆获"法国文学艺术骑士勋章" 忆法国情结], 2013-09-29, Retrieved 2017-01-14
2017: 5th Newman Prize for Chinese Literature
2018: 2nd JD Literature Prize, "红豆生南国"{{citation needed|date=May 2020}}