Thus Speaks the Narrator

As a female author, Zhao Mei has the propensity to write from a specifically feminist perspective and all the essays collected in this book are, without any exception, concerned with women’s issues. They encompass her commentaries on prominent women figures in Chinese history such as Empress Wu Zetian, Princess Gao Yang and Shangguan Waner; reconstructions of the lives of talented women writers and actresses like Eileen Chang, Hu Die and Ruan Lingyu, who lived during the era of the Republic of China; and interpretations of the distinguished women writers in the West such as Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir and Marguerite Duras. In addition, the author sets out to decipher the racial characteristics of her own ethnic group and its racial identity. Finally she has also made serious reflections on the differences and distinctiveness of female writing.