Paul Theroux
Inflaming the Chinese
One Half of the Sky: A Selection from Contemporary Women Writers of China
By R A Roberts and Angela Knox (trans)
William Heinemann 143pp £11.95 order from our bookshop
Modern Chinese literature is not in a particularly robust phase at the moment, but if you complain about this to an educated Chinese you will be told that, artistically, things haven't been the same since the Tang Dynasty (618–907). That by common consent was the high point of Chinese culture. Mao Zedong was especially fond of the Tang poet, Du Fu, who lived in the Eighth Century. 'China has no tradition of women's literature', Frances Wood says in her introduction to this book of Twentieth Century stories by Chinese women writers. But there is no shortage of stories about women, and indeed one of the most interesting is the pornographic classic, Jin Ping Mei, which has been banned in China since the Ming Dynasty (1368–1643).
Chinese pornography is characterised by both ruthlessness and the attention to detail. A case could be made for the concubine of the protagonist of Jin Ping Mei – her name is Golden Lotus – being portrayed with feminist sympathy. And she is triumphant. At the end of this 1600 page
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'Within hours, the news spread. A grimy gang of desperadoes had been captured just in time to stop them setting out on an assassination plot of shocking audacity.'
@katheder on the Cato Street Conspiracy of 1820.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/butchers-knives-treason-and-plot
'It is the ... sketches of the local and the overlooked that lend this book its density and drive, and emphasise Britain’s mostly low-key riches – if only you can be bothered to buy an anorak and seek.'
Jonathan Meades on the beauty of brutalism.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/castles-of-concrete
'Cruickshank’s history reveals an extraordinary eclecticism of architectural styles and buildings, from Dutch Revivalism to Arts and Crafts experimentation, from Georgian terraces to Victorian mansion blocks.'
William Boyd on the architecture of Chelsea.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/where-george-eliot-meets-mick-jagger