Chinese Literature - Li-hua Ying 2010

SU WEIZHEN (1954— )
The Dictionary

SU WEIZHEN (1954— ). Fiction writer. Born in Taiwan, Su Weizhen graduated from a school of film and theater run by the military in Taipei and received her Ph.D. from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She currently teaches literature at the Chinese University of Culture in Taipei. Su spent more than 10 years in the army, which provided material for her early work. Her best stories, however, are not about soldiers but about young lovers, focusing especially on female desire and sexuality. Her stories, such as “Pei ta yiduan” (Accompany Him Awhile), “Hongyan yi lao” (Lost Youth), and “Shijian nüzi” (Women in the World), often portray women entangled in passionate romances that end tragically. Psychosis, insanity, disappearance, and death permeate her stories, enveloping them in darkness. Her female protagonists willingly and unregretfully throw themselves into the passions and perils of relationships with abandonment, and their single-mindedness accentuates the power and darkness of sexual love. Su’s aesthetic of passion is most powerfully expressed in Chenmo zhi dao (An Island of Silence), which depicts the female mind and body as a proud and aloof island, silent on the surface but turbulent underneath. Although Su’s subject is passion of the heart, her tone is invariably controlled and ironic. Her other main works include Fengbi de daoyu (An Island in Isolation), Moshu shike (Magic Moment), and Likai Tongfang (Leaving the Residential Compound for Military Families).