Wang Anyi

Wang Anyi
Native name	王安忆
Born	March 1954 (age 70) Nanjing, China
Occupation	Novelist
Language	Chinese
Alma mater	Xiangming High School
Period	1978-present
Genre	Novel, prose
Literary movement	Xungen movement
Notable works	The Song of Everlasting Sorrow
Notable awards	4th Shanghai Literary and Art Award 1998 The Song of Everlasting Sorrow 5th Mao Dun Literature Prize 2000 The Song of Everlasting Sorrow 2nd Hong Kong The Dream of the Red Chamber Award 2008 The Age of Enlightenment 4th Hong Kong The Dream of the Red Chamber Award 2012 Tianxiang
Relatives	Father: Wang Xiaoping (王啸平) Mother: Ru Zhijuan

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Wang.

Wang Anyi
Traditional Chinese	王安憶
Simplified Chinese	王安忆
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Wāng Ānyì

Wang Anyi (born in Nanjing in 1954) is a Chinese writer who is the chairwoman of Shanghai Writers' Association.

Biography

The daughter of a famous writer, Ru Zhijuan, and a father who was denounced as a Rightist when she was three years old, Wang Anyi writes that she "was born and raised in a thoroughfare, Huaihai Road." Due to the Cultural Revolution, she was not permitted to continue her education beyond junior high school. Instead, at age fifteen, she was assigned to be a farm labourer to a commune in Anhui, an impoverished province near the Huai River, which was plagued by famine.

Transferred in 1972 to a cultural troupe in Xuzhou, she began to publish short stories in 1976. One story that grew out of this experience, "Life In a Small Courtyard", recounts the housekeeping details, marriage customs, and relationships of a group of actors assigned to a very limited space where they live and rehearse between their professional engagements. She was permitted to return home to Shanghai in 1978 to work as an editor of the magazine Childhood. In 1980 she received additional professional training from the China Writers Association, and her fiction achieved national prominence, winning literary award in China. Her 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. Although the book was published in 1995, it is already considered by many as a modern classic. Wang is often compared with another female writer from Shanghai, Eileen Chang, as both of their stories are often set in Shanghai, and give vivid and detailed descriptions of the city itself.

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". In March 2008, her book The Song of Everlasting Sorrow was translated into English.

In 2011, Wang Anyi was nominated to win the Man Booker International Prize.

Works available in English translations

Novels

• Xiao Baozhuang (小鲍庄), 1985:
• Huangshan Zhi Lian (荒山之恋), 1986:
• Xiaocheng Zhi Lian (小城之恋), 1986:
• Jinxiugu Zhi Lian (锦绣谷之恋), 1987:
• Chang Hen Ge (长恨歌), 1995:

Novellas and short stories

A 1988 anthology Lapse of Time contains the following stories:

• "The Destination" (本次列车终点) translated by Yu Fanqin
• "And the Rain Patters On" (雨，沙沙沙)
• "Life in a Small Courtyard" (小院琐记) translated by Hu Zhihui
• "The Stage, a Miniature World" (舞台小世界) translated by Song Shouquan
• "The Base of the Wall" (墙基)
• "Between Themselves" (人人之间) translated by Gladys Yang
• "Lapse of Time" (流逝)

Another anthology The Little Restaurant translated by Yawtsong Lee, was published in 2010.

Other stories translated to English include:

• "Birds Fighting for a Nest" (雀鸠一战) translated by Nigel Bedford
• "Brothers" (弟兄们) translated by Diana B. Kingsbury
• "Friends" (朋友) translated by Nienling Liu
• "Lao Kang Come Back" (老康回来) translated by Jeanne Tai
• "Miaomiao" (妙妙) translated by Don J. Cohen
• "The Mouth of the Famous Female Impersonator" (名旦之口) translated by Janice Wickeri and Zhu Zhiyu
• "Under the Street Lights" (街灯底下) translated by Shin Yong Robson

Further reading

• Chinese Writers on Writing featuring Wang Anyi. Ed. Arthur Sze. (Trinity University Press, 2010).

External links

• WANG, Anyi International Who's Who. accessed September 1, 2006. (Requires subscription)