Intergenerational Writing Practices in Chinese Fiction for Adolescent Girls

in Girlhood Studies
Author:
Yan Du PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge, UK yd280@cam.ac.uk

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https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4167-3263
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2022.150207
Keywords:
Chinese girls’fiction; Chinese women's writing; coming-of-age; feminine adolescence; intergenerational communication; post socialist children's literature
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Abstract

The Anthology of Chinese Fictions on Adolescent Girls’ Psychology (2016) is one of the most renowned collections of girls’ stories in Chinese children's literature. Authored by Qin Wenjun, Cheng Wei, and Chen Danyan, it is often associated with the rise of shaonǚ xiaoshuo (girls’ fiction) in China. In this article, I evaluate the collective writing practices of the women authors mentioned above, focusing, in particular, on how their featured stories address intergenerational dissent and explore models of communication between adolescent girls and women. Highlighting how The Anthology traverses the age divide in a time during which both children's literature and the lives of teenagers underwent significant shifts, I intend to further scholarly understandings of Chinese girls’ fiction as a unique literary phenomenon.

Contributor Notes

Yan Du (ORCID: 0000-0003-4167-3263) is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Research in Children's Literature at the University of Cambridge. Her research interests include Lucy Maud Montgomery, girls’ Künstlerromane, and Chinese girls’ literature. She has published on contemporary iterations of the young adult Künstlerroman and has forthcoming articles on the functions of poetry in girls’ fiction and representations of female sexuality in late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century young adult Chinese fiction. Email: yd280@cam.ac.uk

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Girlhood Studies

An Interdisciplinary Journal

Cover Girlhood Studies
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
17
Keywords:
Chinese girls’fiction; Chinese women's writing; coming-of-age; feminine adolescence; intergenerational communication; post socialist children's literature
Print Publication Date:
01 Jun 2022
Online Publication Date:
01 Jun 2022
Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2022

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