Born in 1954, Wang Anyi is one of contemporary China's most influential and innovative writers. Wang is currently the chairperson of the Shanghai Writers' Association. She has written more than five million Chinese characters , winning important awards from both home and abroad dozens of times. 

Wang is the co-author of the screenplay of Chen Kaige's film Temptress Moon, and has also had numerous books translated into English, including Baotown (1985), Lapse of Time (1988), Love in a Small Town (1988), Love on a Barren Mountain (1991), and Brocade Valley (1992). Her most challenging novel, Changhen Ge(Song of Everlasting Sorrow , 1996), is a beautifully written epic tracing the trials and tribulations of a former Shanghai beauty pageant winner from the 1940s to the present.

Wang's work is particularly interesting from a feminist perspective. For instance, some of her later works, particular her trilogy of "love" novels from the late 1980s (Love in a Small Town, Love on a Barren Mountain, and [Love in a] Brocade Valley ), have been striking and controversial in imaginatively exploring feminine subjectivity and sexuality.

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