Chinese Journal of Literary Criticism

No.2, 2020

Urban and Rural Writing and the Gender Consciousness of “Post-70s” Female Writers

(Abstract)

Cao Xia

The gender writing and gender consciousness of “post-70s” female writers are different from those of their predecessors. Although they also write women’s stories, they are no longer confined to the narrative perspective of women, no longer infatuated with the exploration of the “small world” of body and desire. Their rural writing experienced a shift from romance to realism, from retrospection to nonfiction, from poetics to sociology, and entered into the expression of public topics in the trend of realism; their county and town writing show the characteristics of the boundary and transition in the period of China’s social transformation, and has the interdisciplinary value of history, sociology, geography, economics, etc.; their urban writing is isomorphic with China’s urban development, which not only involves diversified themes, but also situates the traditional gender theme within the background of reform and opening-up, which leads to the metaphysical spiritual exploration in the interweaving of personal and public discourse.