Writer Sanmao: A photo of an unknown date.
In the early 70s of the 20th century, Taiwanese writer Sanmao saw an article about the Sahara in National Geographic, and then told a friend that she wanted to travel there and cross it.
Friends thought she was joking, but she ended up on the journey, writing that the vast Sahara Desert was her "dream lover." In her classic essay collection "The Story of the Sahara," published in 1976, she wrote that when she first came to the Sahara, arriving at a windswept airport in the western Saharan city of Laayoune, "I looked up and saw a lonely wind whining on the endless yellow sand, and the sky was high, and the ground was thick and majestic and quiet." ”
"It was dusk," she continued. "The setting sun dyes the desert a bloody red, poignant and terrifying. The climate is almost early winter, and in the mood of expecting a hot day, the earth turns into a poetic desolation. ”
It was one of the many adventures she would embark on, and the prose and poetry she wrote since then have been passed down through generations of young women in Taiwan and China, exuding confidence and courage to explore the local area as a courageous challenge to conservative local social norms.
After publishing more than a dozen books of essays and poems, Sanmao died in 1991, but she was not forgotten. There is an account on Weibo dedicated to excerpts from some of her works, and the account now has more than 1 million followers.
Next month, Bloomsbury will launch an English translation of The Sahara Story in the UK and in the US in January. Fu Mai, the translator of the book, said that this is the first English translation of all of Sanmao's works.
"It's extraordinary that she has been so prosperous in Chinese literature," said Fu Mai, associate dean for global programs at the Parsons School of Design in New York. 其中一个原因可能是，她的写作风格与习惯上自我分享着自己的经历使这一代人产生了共鸣。
"Although unabashed self-advocacy and active empowerment have become ubiquitous in the contemporary era of social media and commercial feminism, Sanmao's spirit is ahead of her time," Zhang Wenning, a Singaporean novelist now living in the UK, wrote in the preface to the English version of The Sahara Story.
However, Zhang Wenning said that her portrayals of loneliness, melancholy and "world-weariness" often undermine her soaring image of confidence.
The essays, originally published in a Taiwanese newspaper at the time, depict the life of the Saharawits, a nomadic people who have lived in the desert for generations. They fought armed struggle with Spain and Morocco for decades. Resistance to Spain continued until the mid-70s of the 20th century, followed by Morocco. The latter then ruled Western Sahara, an area stretching from Algeria and Mauritania in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west.
Sanmao gradually integrated into the life of the Saharawi people, sometimes taking a critical look at some of their customs. For example, she abhors the tradition of rudely taking away the virginity of young brides at weddings.
In an article titled "The Doll Bride," she wrote: "I was ridiculously disappointed and ridiculous by the end of the wedding, and I stood up and strode out without saying goodbye to anyone. ”
A photo of Sanmao's hike. She often describes her bohemian lifestyle.
Other articles document the bohemian life of the Sanmao diaspora. For example, on her wedding day, she didn't pay much attention to what she was wearing, wore a linen skirt, a pair of sandals, and a handful of coriander pinned to her hat, and she and her fiancé walked nearly 40 minutes in the desert to get married.
She wrote: "No purse, empty-handed. "Her prose is somewhere between memoir and fiction, with a simplicity and elegance reminiscent of the poetry of the Beat generation. At the same time, they were lighthearted and pleasant, an unusual quality compared to the period of martial law of the "White Terror" in which her native Taiwan was at the time. At that time, many anti-government activists were being imprisoned or executed.
"She built a different, exotic place, a castle in the sand for readers to enjoy." Ho Xingfeng, a professor of literature at Hong Kong's Chinese University, said: "In Taiwan, when material comforts were extremely limited, she longed for something different and proved to girls younger than her that uniqueness was acceptable." ”
Sanmao's original name was Chen Ping, and in addition to the pen name "Sanmao", she sometimes used the name "Echo Chan". On March 26, 1943, during World War II, Sanmao was born into a knowledgeable Christian family in the southwestern Chinese city of Chongqing. Her father, Chen Siqing, is a lawyer, and her mother, Miao Jinlan, is a housewife.
After the war, the Sanmao family moved to Nanjing in the east, fleeing to Taiwan on the eve of the victory of the communist revolutionary forces in 1949.
Sanmao was restless as a student, and she spent a lot of time reading Chinese and Western literature, including "Gone with the Wind" and "The Count of Monte Cristo."
One day, she wrote in her essay that she wanted to be a garbage picker so that she could wander the streets and find treasures that had been discarded by others. The teacher said she was talking nonsense and asked her to write again, but she intensified her efforts and wrote that she wanted to be a popsicle vendor.
After completing his studies in philosophy at Chinese Culture University in Taiwan, Sanmao moved to Spain in 1967 and then studied in Germany and briefly worked at the University of Illinois Law Library.
At the age of 24, she met her future husband, José María Quero, who was 16 and lived in the same neighborhood.
"She studied philosophy, language and literature," Carmen Quero, Jose's sister, said of meeting her in a 2016 interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais. He fell in love with her at first sight. ”
Sanmao with her husband Jose. When they met, she was 24 and he was 16.
They married in 1974 and settled in the Canary Islands, Spain. There, Sanmao wrote the lyrics of the song "Olive Tree", which became popular and was sung by Taiwanese singer Qi Yu.
"Don't ask me where I'm from
My homeland is far away
Why wander
Wandering far away, wandering"
In 1979, the year the song was released, Jose, a diver and underwater engineer, was killed in a diving accident. Filled with grief, Sanmao returned to Taiwan in 1981.
Sanmao's friend and Taiwanese painter Xue Youchun said in a telephone interview, "She gave everyone love and passion, but Jose took away an important part of her life." ”
For the next 10 years, Sanmao taught creative writing and was affectionately known as "wandering writers". She traveled to many places, including a six-month trip to Central and South America to complete a contract for Taiwan's Lianhe Pao. The newspaper had published articles about her time in the Sahara.
In April 1989, Sanmao returned to her birthplace in Chinese mainland. The trip inspired her to write the screenplay for what came to be called Rolling Red Dust. Released in 1990, the film tells a love story during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai.
On January 4, 1991, Sanmao died in a hospital in Taiwan at the age of 47. Her death was judged to be suicide and caused great grief in Taiwan.
Some speculate that she committed suicide because she was too saddened by her husband's death.
"For 12 years after Jose died, she just lived for her parents," Ms. Xue said. "Maybe she left us to reunite with the person she had already promised."
Sanmao once wrote to do this. "Jose, you promised you to wait for me over there," she wrote in her 1981 essay on death, "The Immortal Bird." "With your promise, I still have hope."
Crown Press, a long-time collaboration with Sanmao, published a collection of her works in 2010. In recent years, the Canary Islands and Western Sahara have become popular destinations for Chinese tourists. Some Chinese websites also offer directions to the church where Sanmao married in Western Sahara and a nearby hotel called Sanmao Sahara.
Sanmao's last book, My Baby, collected 86 short essays describing clothing, jewelry, hand-decorated bowls and other items she bought during her travels.
In one of the essays, she paused to analyze her wardrobe and then wrote a metaphor.
"The jeans below were bought from Shilin, the boots were from Spain, the big leather bag—Costa Rica, the big coat, Parisian," she wrote. "A great platter of the world, it can also be said that they are so harmoniously and safely intertwined, this is the me."