Wang Anyi’s Followers (56)

Wang Anyi

Born

in Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

March 06, 1954

Genre

Fiction, Historical Fiction, Contemporary

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Wang Anyi (王安忆, born in Tong'an in 1954) is a Chinese writer, and currently the chairwoman of Writers' Association of Shanghai. The daughter of a famous writer and member of the Communist Party, Ru Zhijuan(茹志鹃), 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." As a result of the Cultural Revolution, she was not permitted to continue her education beyond the junior high school level. Instead, at age fifteen, she was assigned as a farm labourer to a commune in Anhui, an impoverished area 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 sto Wang Anyi (王安忆, born in Tong'an in 1954) is a Chinese writer, and currently the chairwoman of Writers' Association of Shanghai. The daughter of a famous writer and member of the Communist Party, Ru Zhijuan(茹志鹃), 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." As a result of the Cultural Revolution, she was not permitted to continue her education beyond the junior high school level. Instead, at age fifteen, she was assigned as a farm labourer to a commune in Anhui, an impoverished area 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 Chinese Writer's Association, and her fiction achieved national prominence, winning literary award in China.

Her most famous novel, The Everlasting Regret (长恨歌), 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."

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Average rating: 3.81 · 1,711 ratings · 231 reviews · 87 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai by Wang Anyi, Michael Berry (Translator), Susan Chan Egan (Translator) 3.93 avg rating — 797 ratings — published 1991 — 47 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Amour dans une vallée enchantée by Wang Anyi, Yvonne André (Translator) 3.29 avg rating — 121 ratings — published 1988 — 20 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Fu Ping: A Novel (Weatherhead Books on Asia) by Wang Anyi, Howard Goldblatt (Translation) 3.36 avg rating — 73 ratings — published 2000 — 8 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	一把刀，千个字 by Wang Anyi, 王安忆 4.03 avg rating — 37 ratings — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Thắm sắc hoa đào by Wang Anyi, Sơn Lê (Translator), 王安忆 3.47 avg rating — 36 ratings — published 2009 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	天香 by Wang Anyi, 王安忆 4.13 avg rating — 23 ratings — published 2011 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Love on a Barren Mountain by Wang Anyi, 王安忆 3.42 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 1993 — 7 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Little Restaurant by Wang Anyi, Yawtsong Lee (Translator), Wang Jiren (Foreword) 3.31 avg rating — 26 ratings — published 2009 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Lapse of Time (Panda Series) by Wang Anyi, 王安忆 3.89 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 1988 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	我爱比尔 by Wang Anyi, 王安忆 4.10 avg rating — 10 ratings — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Quotes by Wang Anyi (?)

“But do not look down on even the most minute of things; for with the coming of daybreak, even the tiniest particles of dust in this world sing and dance in the sunlight.”
― Anyi Wang, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai

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“Being extra nice to someone can be a form of manipulation--kindness is an exercise of power in its own right.”
― Wang Anyi, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai

tags: kindness, niceness

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“Like most Shanghai residents who had lived through such sweeping historical changes, they regarded the Communist Party as unapproachable, and saw themselves as people left over from a previous era. Moreover, living in the heart of society, caught up in the swirl of everyday life, they barely had a chance to develop a coherent opinion of themselves, let alone grand concepts like "the nation" or "political power." They are not to be faulted for their narrow frame of reference, because a large city is like a huge machine that turns according to the principles dictated by its own structure; only its tiniest components have a human texture, and it is these tiny components that people hold on to, otherwise they would fall into the vacuum of abstraction.”
― Wang Anyi, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai

tags: cities

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Wang Anyi’s Followers (56)

Wang Anyi

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