Weatherhead Books on Asia Author Fang Fang Lauded as ‘One of the Most Eloquent Voices in Contemporary China’
China Books Review praises two novels that demonstrate the Wuhan Diary author's commitment to truth-telling.
The Weatherhead Books on Asia series enjoys a moment in the spotlight this week with the publication of Yangyang Cheng’s in-depth consideration, for China Books Review, of Soft Burial and The Running Flame — two novels by the Chinese author Fang Fang that were released in the series earlier this year.
Fang Fang is perhaps best-known in the West as the author of Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City (2021), the first-person nonfiction account of life during COVID-19 lockdown that won her worldwide acclaim and official censure in her native country. The two novels in the Weatherhead Books on Asia series are equally vivid demonstrations of Fang Fang’s commitment to truth-telling and her refusal to shy away from controversy. Soft Burial is an unsparing depiction of the early 1950s land reform movement that was initially lauded but later banned after its publication in 2016. The Running Flame, from 2001, tells the story (inspired by a real-life incident) of a rural woman whose struggle against patriarchal authority pushes her toward desperate extremes. UCLA’s Michael Berry, who also rendered Wuhan Diary into English, translated both novels.
In her China Books Review piece, “No Country for a Woman,” Cheng calls Fang Fang “one of the most eloquent voices in contemporary China and an astute observer of its gendered disparities.”
Launched by Columbia University Press in 2001, Weatherhead Books on Asia is a series of high-quality translations from Asian languages that are meant for both specialists and general readers. David Der-Wei Wang of Harvard University edits the fiction titles, while Carol Gluck, George Sansom Professor Emerita of History at Columbia, presides over the nonfiction releases in history, society, and culture.
Coincidentally, the series gets another profile boost later this week: On Thursday, October 16, the Center for Korean Research hosts a talk with Janet Poole, translator and editor of Patterns of the Heart and Other Stories (2024), the first collection in English by the Korean modernist writer Ch’oe Myŏngik (1903–?). Click here for more details and to register for that event.
Read “No Country for a Woman” by Yangyang Cheng at China Books Review