A Q&A with Wang Anyi

Abstract

WORLDLIT.ORG 43 One day, I accidentally wandered into an old longtang . Squeezed into a narrow crack between glass-walled skyscrapers, it was nothing but a vestigial segment. I looked around in a daze—I had no idea where I was, and I had to ask directions from an elderly man who just happened to be walking by. He’d been lost in thought, and when I called out to him, he jumped: “You scared the wits out of me!” He spoke with the same local accent I’d been surrounded by growing up—genuine Shanghainese , with his hun sounding like huo, so he gave me a bit of a surprise as well. The various sounds and scents of the lane welled up from the pavement and enfolded me, hot tears filled my eyes, and the obscure pathway that had been hidden deep beneath the surface sparkled for a moment in the blazing sun, before it once again sank back into the broken tiles of a dilapidated garden wall. Memories of experiences that were attached to physical things beckoned like objects in a lost and found, but only for an instant; for immediately afterward, with another sweep of the hand, they abandoned me. The day I left home as a young woman, I went to the freight-train depot on the edge of town. There was no platform. The ties and coarse gravel beneath them lay in plain view, black rails meandered into the far distance, and heaven and earth seemed infinitely high and wide. Those who had come to see us off stood beside the wheels of the carriages and reached up through the windows, just barely able to grasp the hands of those who were leaving. At that moment, the town suddenly seemed bold and fierce as it threw off its old habits, leapt out of its old rut, and assumed a new form. When the train sped forward, the city revealed its whole face. It seemed entirely possible that there was nothing standing between the spot where we had lived, off the beaten track, filled with nooks and crannies, and the wider world. I opened my eyes wide and saw that this city was just a little courtyard, overgrown with foxtails and plantagos, a tiny and desolate patch—and yet to me it seemed vast and teeming with life. An oleander extended its flowering twigs over the wall, and green loquats fell from a neighbor’s tree—this was my season of blossoming and harvesting. Pill bugs and earthworms multiplied in the poor, thin soil of this garden. Bounded by walls on four sides, this spot also provided space for human activity, a place for me to grow, until one day I discovered that it had become the ruins of an illusion. Translation from the Chinese By Andrea Lingenfelter A Q&A with Wang Anyi by Ping Zhu Q: Would you like to be called a “woman writer” or just a “writer”? A: When I was young, I didn’t like the title “woman writer”; but now I’ve accepted it, because that is what I am. Q: Which is your favorite period of Shanghai? A: I grew up and live in Shanghai, so it is a place I cannot view objectively. Because my experiences are connected to Shanghai, it is more about which period of my life, rather than which period of Shanghai, that I like most. In the 1980s, I was young, but there were a lot of problems in my life. Now I live a comfortable life, but I’m no longer young. Q: It seems that the longtangs in your works represent not only the unique urban layout of Shanghai but also its complex history. Are the longtangs both spatial and temporal? A: Novelists are not responsible for reality. The longtangs are a stage I set up for my fictional characters. Whether the longtangs are temporal or spatial, they are theatrical. Q: What constantly drives you to break through your limits so you can produce works with different styles? A: My love for imagination and words. I don’t think I’ve had breakthroughs; I just keep writing day by day. Q: Which work have...