When "I" Was Born

by Wang, Jing M.

• ISBN13: 9780299225100
• ISBN10: 0299225100
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-04-25
• Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Pr

Summary

In the period between the 1920s and 1940s, a genre emerged in Chinese literature that would reveal crucial contradictions in Chinese culture that still exist today. At a time of intense political conflict, Chinese women began to write autobiography, a genre that focused on personal identity and self-exploration rather than the national, collective identity that the country was championing. When "I" Was Born: Womenrs"s Autobiography in Modern Chinareclaims the voices of these particular writers, voices that have been misinterpreted and overlooked for decades. Tracing women writers as they move from autobiographical fiction, often self-revelatory and personal, to explicit autobiographies that focused on womenrs"s roles in public life, Jing M. Wang reveals the factors that propelled this literary movement, the roles that liberal translators and their renditions of Western life stories played, and the way in which these women writers redefined writing and gender in the stories they told. But Wang reveals another story as well: the evolving history and identity of women in modern Chinese society.When "I" Was Bornadds to a growing body of important work in Chinese history and culture, womenrs"s studies, and autobiography in a global context. Writers discussed include Xie Bingying, Zhang Ailing, Yu Yinzi, Fei Pu, Lu Meiyen, Feng Heyi, Ye Qian, Bai Wei, Shi Wen, Fan Xiulin, Su Xuelin, and Lu Yin.

Author Biography

Jing M. Wang is assistant professor of Chinese literature and language at Colgate University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 3
The Emergence of Modern Chinese Women's Autobiography	p. 16
Western Life Narratives and Theories in Chinese Translation	p. 43
Women's Short Autobiographies during the War Years	p. 76
Writing Her Own Identity: Autobiography of Lu Yin	p. 103
Su Xuelin's Autobiographical Chapters	p. 120
Speaking the Unspeakable: Bai Wei's Tragic Life	p. 144
Xie Bingying's Autobiography by Installment	p. 166
Conclusion	p. 188
Notes	p. 193
Chronology	p. 227
Glossary	p. 229
Index	p. 251
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

“Chinese women’s autobiography reveals what stories were told and what stories were silenced.”—Jing M. Wang

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Excerpted from When I Was Born: Women's Autobiography in Modern China by Jing M. Wang
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