China autobiography

  • My personal favourite Chinese non-fiction, memoir and autobiographical books.
  • If you are into memoir here are some memoir books from China for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
  • A candid, rollicking literary travelogue from a pioneering New Yorker writer, an intrepid heroine who documented China in the years before World War II.

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    Chinese Autobiographical Writing

    Personal accounts help us understand notions of self, interpersonal relations, and historical events. Chinese Autobiographical Writing contains full translations of works by fifty individuals that illuminate the history and conventions of writing about oneself in the Chinese tradition. From poetry, letters, and diaries to statements in legal proceedings, these engaging and readable works draw us into the past and provide vivid details of life as it was lived from the pre-imperial period to the nineteenth century. Some focus on a person's entire life, others on a specific moment. Some have an element of humor, others are entirely serious. Taken together, these selections offer an intimate view of how kinesisk men and women, both famous and obscure, reflected on their experiences as well as their personal struggles and innermost thoughts.

    With an introduction and list of additional readings for each urval, this volume is ideal for undergraduate

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    When “I” Was Born
    Women’s Autobiography in Modern China
    Jing M. Wang


    Wisconsin Studies in Autobiography

    “Chinese women’s autobiography reveals what stories were told and what stories were silenced.”—Jing M. Wang

    In the period between the 1920s and 1940s, a genre emerged in Chinese literature that would reveal crucial contradictions in Chinese culture that still exist today. At a time of intense political conflict, Chinese women began to write autobiography, a genre that focused on anställda identity and self-exploration rather than the national, collective identity that the country was championing.

    When “I” Was Born: Women’s Autobiography in Modern China reclaims the voices of these particular writers, voices that have been misinterpreted and overlooked for decades. Tracing women writers as they move from autobiographical fiction, often self-revelatory and personal, to explicit autobiographies that focuse

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    China Hand

    "China Hand is low-key but forceful, at times quite deliciously witty. . . . No doubt China Hand will be of particular interest to students of Chinese history from the 1930s to the 50s and of American diplomacy during the same period, but its greatest value is as the personal testament of a man who was the wholly innocent victim of political opportunism yet retained his sense of personal worth and, equally important, his undying loyalty to the country that had served him so poorly. His life should be an object lesson to everyone."—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
    "The book is filled with vivid personalities and brings to life the fluid strategic situation at the end of the war. Its wry style makes for a delightful read, even though the foreordained outcome suffuses the story with regret."—Foreign Affairs
    "An often funny, always insightful account of an adventurous and wonderful life. John Paton Davies was an American hero-judicious, discre