Small angle, wide view

Some of Wang's works have been translated into English, such as Years of Sadness published by Cornell. Her latest book Zhong Sheng Xuan Hua (right) arouses great interest in China. Photos Provided to China Daily

The novella, along with six other short stories, is included in Wang's latest book Zhong Sheng Xuan Hua (The Noisy Life), after she finished her longer work Scent of Heaven.

Penguin is set to publish an English edition of Scent of Heaven later this year, believing Wang's writing "tends to focus on local details and the private rather than public sphere".

Nominated for the 2011 Man Booker International Prize and winner of the country's prestigious Mao Dun Literature Prize, Wang was hailed as "the most prolific and critically acclaimed woman writer in contemporary China" when Cornell published her Years of Sadness: Autobiographical Writings of Wang Anyi.

Wang's works

Carmen Callil, when judging the Man Booker prize, said Wang "is such a great writer it was easy to see her worth despite some rather bad American translations".

Wang is known for her novel The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, which some said connected her with "nostalgic" writers. But she denies that, saying "I'm a strict realistic writer and I write about the society at the moment".

She also denies being a "feminist writer", though she writes a lot about women, saying it's too easy to put such labels on writers.

The most prominent tag on her is "Shanghai", the setting of many of her works. Born in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, in 1954, Wang moved to Shanghai the next year with her mother Ru Zhijuan, also a well-known writer. Since then, the city has nurtured her writing talent - she has been publishing since the late 1970s, and she still lives and works in the city.

"My relationship with Shanghai is actually full of tension. I don't like the place, but I can't avoid it. I know it so well that I don't have another option," Wang says.

Wang, who enjoys writing because of the power of imagination, creates characters with compelling traits and values that - because of social changes, she says - can most easily be found among the marginalized groups.

"Because their problems, like the speaking obstacles of the young and old men in the novella, make it possible for them to avoid the overwhelming influences from the so-called mainstream thinking and attitude," Wang says.

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