Tie Ning – författare

Longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize A modern Chinese classic Sisters Tiao and Fan grew up in the shadow of the Cultural Revolution. They witnessed immense suffering, including the death of their baby sister in a tragic accident. It was an accident they could have prevented; an accident that will stay with them forever. In the China of the 1990s the sisters lead seemingly successful lives. Tiao is a successful children’s publisher but incapable of finding love. Fan has moved to America, desperate to shun her Chinese heritage. Then there is their childhood friend Fei: beautiful, hedonistic and outwardly ambitious. As the women grapple with love, rivalry and past secrets will they find the freedom and redemption they crave? Spellbinding, unforgettable, and an important chronicle of modern China, The Bathing Women is a powerful and beautiful portrait of the strength of female friendship in the face of adversity.

Growing up in a glittering new decade of possibility, Anran is radically different to her sister. Outspoken and idealistic, she relishes in challenging hypocrisy, unlike the older Anjing, whose memories of a turbulent past remind her of the perils of going against the grain.When Anran is targeted by her teacher for her refusal to conform to authority, should Anjing shield her sibling from life's hard truths, or will she let her blaze her own path?First published in China in 1984, Tie Ning’s coming-of-age novella depicts the challenges of being true to yourself in an era of unpredictable transformation.

While the fervour of the Red Guards consumes 1970s Beijing, Mei comes of age in a once-grand courtyard dominated by her grandmother, a survivor of violence who inflicts the same kind of control upon her family that she once resisted. But the matriarch is unable to repel the political storm that comes to their home and leaves death and a traumatised young girl in its wake.Years later, Mei becomes an artist, slowly committing memory to canvas. When the faultlines of the revolution are recorded as scars, can she learn to reframe the female form as a subject for liberation?