Behind the wheel of Jiang Zai’s literary world

As a featured speaker at the fifth session of the International Showcase of Young Chinese Writers, held at the National Library of China on October 13, young writer Jiang Zai invited readers to explore the shifting boundaries between belonging and estrangement. An award-winning author of A Breath in Between and Flight to Vancouver, Jiang approaches the idea of a “foreign place” not merely as a geographical reality, but as a psychological landscape shaped by mobility, longing and the elusive search for belonging. Through her nuanced portrayals of contemporary life, her writing offers a perspective that may resonate well beyond its immediate cultural context.

Drawing on her experiences across cultures, Jiang writes from the perspective of a perpetual observer, finding in estrangement a fresh way of seeing the familiar. Yet this sense of distance does not necessarily mean severing ties with home. Reflecting on the possibility of writing in a second language, she compares one’s mother tongue to the food one grew up eating—a source of familiarity that remains difficult to replace. It is in this language, the one she dreams in, that she finds her most natural means of expression. This intimate connection between language and identity runs through her delicate explorations of women’s experiences, from aging and family relationships to the search for a sense of self.

Moving between inner and outer worlds, the personal and the universal, Jiang’s fiction opens a window into the subtle textures of contemporary Chinese life, with the potential to speak to readers across cultures.