ABSTRACT
T he importance of Wang Anyi as a novelist stems not only from her extensive documentation of the changing Chinese society and consciousness in the last quarter of the century but also from her continual experimentation with fiction itself. Few contemporary novelists of her time have engaged as many critical subjects as Wang, and few have sustained the same passion with which she pursues her vocation as a writer. Arguably the most widely read, certainly the most anthologized and respected woman writer of her generation, Wang has established herself as a prominent intellectual figure in contemporary China through an extraordinarily wide range of novels, stories, essays, and literary commentaries.
