Wang Anyi, Fang Fang, Chi Li and Chi Zijian often write stories about divorced women or women of a certain age who are not yet married. Wang Anyi and Fang Fang’s stories in the forthcoming anthology By The River: Seven Contemporary Chinese Novellas address this theme. But pretty much all women writers who have emerged since the 1980s, including Zhang Jie (The Ark), Lin Bai, Chen Ran, and Hong Ying address questions of “why should I be so anxious to get married?” although many of their characters are married women who are having doubts about their lives.
Charles Laughlin <cal5m@eservices.virginia.edu>