ABSTRACT

Since the 1980s, China has seen the blossoming of profuse literary productions by women writers that continues and expands the female tradition in modern Chinese literature. According to Lydia H. Liu, “terms such as nüxing yishi (female consciousness) and nüxing wenxue (female literature) are invented by critics who wish to conceptualize a female tradition that will recognize women as historical subjects rather than objects of male patronage.” 1 Li Ziyun, a prominent woman literary critic, expresses a similar opinion: “We are witnessing a second upsurge in the literary output of female writers in mainland China. This is marked not only by the extraordinary number and quality of women’s works but by the vanguard role some of those works have played in Chinese literature.” 2