Marketing Chinese women writers in the 1990s, or the politics of self-fashioning

Abstract

This article examines the sensation a young group of woman writers are causing in 1990s China. Variously named the ‘New, New Generation’, or Glam Lit writers, these women have received critical attention from the literary field and the market. While critics debate the seriousness of their literature, publishing houses are producing their literature at a rapid pace. A governmental ban on the works of two authors, Zhou Weihui and Mian Mian, has fueled readership of black market copies and spurred commentary on the Internet. I argue that the unbridled female sexuality that fuels the sensation of these writers is driven by the publishing market and cultural production, with the complicity of women authors themselves. While the article is critical of the media for exploiting female sexuality, it is also critical of the ambivalence these women writers have toward their own sexuality as well as the authority their writing accords them. While their writings bring discussion of female sexuality to a public forum that previously denied such discussion, they also reinforce stereotyped notions of female sexuality. I point out that while the authors seek to manipulate the market and cultural forces to achieve self-representation they paradoxically support the very same essentialized understanding of female sexuality that the market, critics, and publishers uphold. Ultimately, the article questions whether the public con sumption of female sexuality, as witnessed in the sensation these young writers have caused, undermines women's literary agency and self-representation.