Life and Leisure

Telling timeless tales of lost youth

By Mei Jia (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-08-13 13:29

While Zhang Kangkang responds with ire when critics categorize her as a "feminist writer", the 60-year-old has authored a number of works that delve deep into the most personal experiences of women.

After publishing the poignant novels Invisible Partner (1986), Gallery of Love and Sex (1996) and Woman On the Brink (2002) to much acclaim from critics, she has tethered her writing's raw emotionalism.

Her recent works demonstrate a mastery of detailed observation and well-cultivated artistic sensibilities.

Since starting her writing career in 1972, Zhang has often depicted the experiences of urban youths sent to the countryside for reeducation. The 1995 novel Quadruple Red on this topic became one of the most prominent of such works.

Zhang has won several prizes and accolades for her novels, novellas, short stories and prose, and shows no signs of slowing down. She was nominated as vice-president of China Writers' Association in 2006.

Literary critic Bai Ye believes Zhang is a rare author who has continued producing with great potential and energy for decades.

She plans to complete a new novel that will be about 500,000 words this year. But Zhang refuses to reveal the book's content until it's finished.