MCLC Resource Center is pleased to announce publication of Wen-chi Li’s review of Queer Literature in the Sinosphere, edited by Hongwei Bao and Yahia Zhengtang Ma. The review appears below and at its online home: https://u.osu.edu/mclc/book-reviews/wen-chi-li/. My thanks to Nicholas Kaldis, our literary studies book review editor, for ushering the review to publication.
Kirk Denton, MCLC
Queer Literature in the Sinosphere
Edited by Hongwei Bao and Yahia Zhengtang Ma
Reviewed by Wen-chi Li
MCLC Resource Center Publication (Copyright March, 2025)
Hongwei Bao and Yahia Zhengtang Ma, eds., Queer Literature in the Sinosphere London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2025. xii + 284 pp. ISBN 9781350415331 (Hardback) / ISBN 9781350415355 (ePDF) / ISBN 9781350415348 (eBook)
Queer Literature in the Sinosphere, edited by Hongwei Bao and Yahia Zhengtang Ma, arrives at a pivotal moment when queer communities are gaining more visibility worldwide. The editors first justify their choice of using “queer literature in the Sinosphere” rather than terms such as “queer Chinese literature” or “queer Sinophone literature.” Whereas the former privileges China, the latter excludes works from the PRC. They adopt the term “Sinosphere,” as proposed by Chris Berry, to encompass all works in Sinitic languages. I am particularly impressed by the book’s introduction, which offers a literary history while also pointing to key academic works for readers to gain a foundational understanding. The volume is divided into four sections—“Trans Formation,” “Queer Women’s Spaces,” “Queer Intersectionality,” and “In Queer Memory”—and explores diverse dimensions of queer literature.
In the first section, “Trans Formation,” three scholars examine the possibilities of transgender identities within Chinese contexts. Aixia Huang revisits male homoerotic literature from the Ming-Qing period, highlighting how male characters often undergo male-to-female gender crossing to preserve their relationships with male lovers; the adoption of trans-femininity rationalizes or legitimizes their intimacy with men. This transformation is sometimes driven by practical concerns, such as improving their social or living conditions.
Dylan K. Wang examines dan (旦) characters in Chinese opera, focusing on how female roles performed by male actors, such as Mei Lanfang, were not only tolerated but also celebrated and idolized. Wang argues that these “women” do not mimic real women but instead strive to create an idealized image of femininity. However, while these representations are embraced on stage, they become problematic when placed in real-world contexts, challenging the gender binary and social norms.
Yahia Ma examines the autobiography of renowned Chinese dancer and actress Jin Xing 金星, along with its English translation. Ma observes that the English version downplays the inner struggles of this transgender woman, instead portraying her as a confident figure defying social heteronormativity, set against the backdrop of China’s post-Mao era and its opening to transnational neoliberalism. The English translation, Ma further observes, also approaches queer desire from a heteronormative perspective, effectively “un-queering” the text and concealing its queerness.
In the second section, “Queer Women’s Spaces,” three authors explore how literature by and about women reimagines queer relationships, challenging social norms and offering alternative perspectives on gender, love, and desire. Yixin Liu examines representations of lesbian love written between 1923 and 1928 by three Republican Chinese women writers. She argues that their approach to lesbianism not only functioned as a balancing mechanism between ideological liberation and the bodily desires that modern Chinese women sought to navigate; it also offered an alternative exploration of the legitimacy of emotional expression within gender relations.
Maya Hamada examines Wang Anyi’s 王安忆 1989 novella Brothers (弟兄们), highlighting its portrayal of a utopian relationship among three women. Hamada argues that Wang’s depiction challenges prevailing gender norms by rejecting the notion that true love exists solely between men and women or that it must take the form of “an exclusive one-on-one relationship” (106).
Jamie J. Zhao examines BDSM and the portrayal of sexual encounters in online lesbian literature. The depiction of “bad sex” and sexual violence is framed as a writing strategy through which authors discursively create, legitimize, and even dramatize lesbian narratives against the backdrop of a heteronormative Chinese sociocultural context.
In the third section, “Queer Intersectionality,” five authors investigate the ways queerness intersects with issues of migration, class, politics, and the boundaries between the human and non-human, offering multifaceted perspectives on identity and belonging. Josh Stenberg observes that the emergence of Sinophone writing in 1990s Australia is closely tied to the wave of immigrants who arrived following the Tiananmen incident. For this “Tiananmen generation” in Australia, the country symbolized political freedom. At the same time, this decade saw the gay community deeply affected by the HIV pandemic. The intersection of these two historical moments gave rise to stories exploring the sexual encounters between Chinese immigrants and white Australians.
Rebecca Ehrenwirth focuses on the Chinese writer Mu Cao 墓草 and examines queer migrant worker characters in Mu Cao’s novel In the Face of Death We Are All Equal (弃儿, 2003). She highlights the characters’ experience of double marginalization—both in terms of gender and class—and explores different forms of “passing.” They strive to pass as straight and middle-class, rejecting the perception of being worthless and disposable. Ehrenwirth argues that queerness in the novel emerges not only from the queer voice but also from the strangeness, the uncanny, and the gruesome nature of queer sexual encounters.
Sophia Huei-Ling Chen examines the works of Taiwanese writer Chen Xue 陳雪, focusing on her novel A Child on the Bridge (橋上的孩子, 2004), which subverts the rags-to-riches narrative and challenges the discourse surrounding Taiwan’s economic miracle. From Sophia Chen’s perspective, Chen Xue questions the authenticity of this so-called miracle, characterizing it as a façade. Through visceral portrayals of the working class—as “unkempt, burnt-out, and hungr[y]”—Chen Xue highlights their lived realities (176). The narrative urges readers to reflect on the complexities of working-class life, rejecting a simplistic rags-to-riches interpretation of the narrator’s upward class mobility. It also proposes an alternative model, suggesting that jobs in the traditional market sector are just as valid as those in large corporations.
Carlos Rojas examines the thematic structure of Chiu Miao-chin’s 邱妙津 two novels, emphasizing how both center on a queer first-person narrator in connection with non-human animals. These animals function as powerful symbols, reflecting contrasts such as the intersection of life and death, the interplay between past and future, the tension of secrecy versus openness, the balance of intimacy and estrangement, and the duality of public versus private realms.
Liang Ge delves into the theme of impossible love between a human and a mushroom in the post-anthropocentric online danmei (耽美) fiction The Little Mushroom (小蘑菇, 2021). In the story, the mushroom transforms into a human-like figure, enters a human sanctuary, and encounters an actual human. The mushroom protagonist is portrayed as both queer and untamed, challenging humanity’s epistemological boundaries between nature and civilization, as well as between animals and plants. The queer relationship between the two protagonists disrupts the established order and replaces the notion of human supremacy with the transformative power of queer love involving the mushroom.
In the fourth section, “In Queer Memory,” three pieces explore the intersection of queer identity, political struggle, and cultural representation. How Wee Ng examines the portrayal of homosexuality, AIDS, and family acceptance in Singaporean Sinophone theater of the early 1990s. These queer narratives critically respond to the government’s longstanding view of homosexuality as an aberration and a threat, as well as the legal framework criminalizing sexual relations between men. The final two pieces are interviews, conducted by Hongwei Bao and Hangping Xu, respectively. In the first interview, Bao prompts interviewee Cui Zi’en 崔子恩 to reflect on his childhood and adolescence, particularly highlighting how his experiences inform the ways he represents queerness through various literary strategies in his works. He also discusses why his works were banned—not due to their homosexual content, but for political reasons. Howard Chiang, interviewed by Hangping Xu, explores the potential of queer Taiwanese literature to be recognized as world literature. He argues that the term “queer Taiwanese literature” is doubly marginalized—by heteronormativity and by the dominance of the concept of Chinese literature. In this context, queer Taiwanese literature functions as a form of minor literature. Its status as “minor” fosters a relationality with other queer individuals and works across borders, positioning these connections as a pathway for Taiwanese literature to participate in the broader framework of world literature.
The volume offers an excellent introduction to queer works in the Sinosphere, making it particularly useful for undergraduates seeking a quick overview or for scholars interested in delving deeper into specific cases. However, one notable drawback is that despite the book’s title, which intentionally avoids the term “Chinese” in favor of encompassing non-PRC regions, there is a disproportionate focus on mainland China. Out of the fourteen chapters, nine are dedicated to mainland China, with only one chapter on Singapore, three on Taiwan, and one on Australia. That said, the chapters on China provide a rich and nuanced representation, spanning from the Ming and Qing dynasties to the May Fourth Movement, and extending into the first decades of the twenty-first century. These chapters also cover a wide array of genres, including online literature, and tackle such themes as BDSM, Chinese opera, and posthumanism, offering an expansive historical and cultural context. In contrast, perhaps due to space constraints, the representation of Taiwanese queer literature feels somewhat underdeveloped and lacks the historical depth seen in the sections on China. The focus is limited to only two key writers, without delving into the struggles for gay rights or exploring the complex queer emotional structures that have played a significant role in Taiwanese literature. This omission is regrettable, because it leaves a gap in the volume’s coverage of queer literature across the Sinosphere. Nevertheless, despite this shortcoming, the achievements of Queer Literature in the Sinosphere are considerable, and it is highly recommend reading for anyone—whether undergraduate, graduate, or general reader—interested in queer works from the Sinosphere. It provides valuable insights into the intersection of queerness, culture, and politics across different Sinophone regions, and serves as an important starting point for further exploration.
Wen-chi Li
Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Mobility Fellow
University of Oxford