Photo by Zhang Li and Luo Xiaoguang
Beijing, April 13 (China News Network) (Reporter Gao Kai) "True women's writing is rich and fertile, it is like a nerve in all directions, connecting women and men, women and women, but also connecting people and reality, people and nature. Beijing Normal University professor Zhang Li edited the "New Women's Writing Album: Beauty is Changing" recently published by beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House, the female scholar hopes to include works in it, with more imaginative and heterogeneous experience expression, to promote the current context of the redefinition and re-understanding of "women's writing".
As a member of the Theory Committee of the Chinese Writers Association and a judge of the Mao Dun Literature Award, Zhang Li has previously written "The Occurrence of Modern Women's Writing in China (1898-1925)", "Sister Mirror", "The Bearer of a Micro-Fire", "There Must Be a Story for Distant People", etc. In March 2019, the "Survey of Gender Perceptions in Our Time" was launched to 127 contemporary Chinese writers, causing widespread social impact. She has edited "Selected Chinese Women's Literature in 2019", "20 Short Stories in 2019", and "20 Chinese Essays in 2019".
"New Women's Writing Album: Beauty Is Changing" is a writing album jointly launched by October Magazine and Zhang Li. This book includes novels, poems and non-fiction novels by thirteen female writers, including Zhai Yongming, Lin Bai, Ye Mi, Qiao Ye, Jin Renshun, Sun Pin, Wen Zhen, Cai Dong, Zhang Tianyi, Tan Bao, Zhou Zhan, Dai Weina, Yuzhen, etc., and also includes the theory and creation of contemporary "women's writing" by Zhang Li and He Guimei. These women writers cover important intergenerational representative writers and poets such as the post-50s, post-60s, post-70s, and post-80s generations.
At the book sharing meeting held recently, Liang Hong, a scholar, writer and professor at Chinese Min University, said that he was not surprised by Zhang Li's concept of "new women's writing". She believes that the topic of women has been particularly popular in recent years, no matter how the public level uses a variety of noisy words to narrate, it needs some scholars in the professional field to speculate from the level of academic theory, which is particularly important, "When we say feminism or feminism, it is often easy to dualistic opposition, at this time, it is precisely the need for scholars, researchers, from a higher level to speculate." It is not only the relationship between men and women, the relationship between the sexes, but actually a certain existence of our civilization, and it has a long history, so the women's problem we see is not just a women's problem. Zhang Li is working tirelessly with the attitude of a scholar, her speculation, her broad tolerance, including the comprehensive and meticulous questionnaire survey she has done, the investigation of women's consciousness, which is actually the concept of our time, not only the concept of gender, but really a civilization concept, doing an in-depth investigation, thus conducting further research work. ”
The works included in New Women's Writing Album: Beauty Is Changing were first published in October magazine, and Ji Yaya is the planning and responsible editor of October magazine. She believes that the "new" advocated in "New Women's Writing" is to see what everyone and each writer looks like in a specific context, their specific feelings and different angles, and the works of different writers in "New Women's Writing Album: Beauty is Changing" bring their different interests and different positions, making the book present a more open and inclusive state.
Cong Zhichen, a young critic and associate professor at Peking University, said, "I speculate that the concept of 'new women's writing' proposed by Teacher Zhang Li probably means that women's writing has been labeled by us for a long time, and the 'new women's writing' advocated by Teacher Zhang Li is actually not only about women, but puts women in a grander social structure, in a nation-state, national history, in a class, class, and so on, we see the status of women. Rather than saying that women's writing can only be enclosed in a small space, or even closed on the level of their own body. ”
As for why the topic "Beauty is Changing", Zhang Li said, "Because I have done research on Chinese women's writing since the late Qing Dynasty, I have seen that the beauty of women has been constantly changing for more than a hundred years. After a long period of liberation and revolution, the whole body of women, the entire image, and the feminine temperament are changing, which is an external change. Another change is the change in women's literature itself, and our judgment of the beauty of women's literature, the judgment of women's literature, and the standard of what is good for women's literature are also changing. 'Beauty is Changing' encompasses my understanding of women's literature, feminine power and the feminine spirit. It seems to me that change has always existed and continues. ”
Liang Hong believes that "beauty is changing" can best reflect the changes in women's concepts in the long seventy years from the writing level, as well as the changes in women's self-perception. From Zhang Jie's "Ark" to Lin Bai's "One Man's War" to today's writing, the beauty of literature is slowly changing, and this beauty, if it is the same in the aesthetic sense of literature, women's writing at this level continues to deepen about the existence of women, about the existence of female consciousness. "The series of new women's writing made by Teacher Zhang Li, everyone should pay attention to it, it is a continuous process of continuous speculation, continuous occurrence, continuous discovery of new existence, and even to shape and form new concepts, which is a great contribution to an era."
Photo by Yang Qingxiang and Luo Xiaoguang
Yang Qingxiang, a scholar, poet and professor at Chinese Min University, has analyzed the new female writing from a male perspective, and he admits that he has always insisted on understanding women from the perspective of men for so many years, and it is difficult for him to avoid discussing an abstract woman with his gender. Many female writers have a long lineage, and in fact they are constantly rewriting and interpreting the story of life, especially the story of female life, to help people understand people, understand men, understand women, understand different genders.
Yang Qingxiang pointed out on the same day, "Men and women are not hostile relationships, but dialectical interactions. So I have always emphasized the idea that women liberate themselves when they liberate men, and men liberate women also liberate themselves, which is a dialectical interactive relationship. So in such a genealogy of writing, those outstanding male writers, those great male writers, also play a very important and positive role. Therefore, whether it is male writing or female writing, they constitute an important part of writing women or writing the story of human life, and they are dialectically liberating ourselves and each other, and liberating each other, which is the most ideal state. I think the works in this book today are in the same state. ”
Zhang Li said that today's book is actually a beginning, it is open, future-oriented, it is at a certain moment, a certain point, truly reflects the survival of women at present, and it is complex, this complexity does not please the mass media. Chinese women's writing has its problems, but it also has its uniqueness, it can see the complexity of gender relations, and the reason why "new women's writing" was launched is to understand women's writing at a broader level.
"New women's writing is actually a calling. One of the visions I'm looking forward to in particular is that one day, there's an article that a girl reads here and she thinks it's too well written, and I'm going to write too, which is certainly good. Another situation is that she read the book and said that they were not as good as the story I knew, so I was going to write. I'm particularly looking forward to the second one. Zhang Li said. (End)
Source: China News Network