Biographies of Women Heroes and Virgins. The Suspicious Life of Du Mei

Author: Yang Jingnan, Zhang Qi, Kang Qiao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: Emerging writers, full effort, ancient stories, modern reinterpretation. What will happen to the fates of Du Shengniang, Xue Tao, Flower Beauty Wang Mei, and the heartbroken Bao Si? New Biographies of Women includes four short stories: Du Mei's Suspicious Life showcases twenty possible lives of Du Mei. It is neither tragedy nor comedy, but rather resembles an author observing the gaps in life through a microscope in a study. This patience makes the work's theme not only point towards reality but also towards the subtleties of human nature. In Xue Tao as a Badminton Player, the female poet Xue Tao's identity is altered, and this playful transformation grants the author creative freedom. Xue Tao and the era she lived in thus appear absurd, noisy, enigmatic, unconventional, and illogical. Here, the author obsessively uses the metaphor of the intellectual's plight. Moon in Water is a novel with ambiguous meaning. The love between Flower Beauty Wang Mei and the modern oil seller is tainted with darkness due to confinement and suspicion. In this story, the author employs a detached narrative, intentionally blurring the boundaries between history and modernity, allowing a man to explore his own existence through a woman. In the story of Burning Flames and Fooling the Vassals, Bao Si has always been the best example of how women are the source of trouble. In the novel Heartbroken Bao Si, the author discovers that a woman cannot control her own fate. State, politics, and desire all demand various sacrifices from her, and everything related to her seems twisted, mad, and unrelated to human nature.