Chinese Literature - Li-hua Ying 2010

WANG XUFENG (1955— )
The Dictionary

WANG XUFENG (1955— ). Novelist. Winner of the Mao Dun Literature Award, Wang Xufeng is known for the “tea trilogy,” a project that took her 10 years to complete. She grew up in Zhejiang, which has a long tea-growing history, and has worked in a tea museum in Hangzhou. An expert in tea culture, from its growing to its appreciation in high society, Wang has turned her knowledge into a saga of a Hangzhou family’s relationship with tea for the past 150 years. Part 1 of the trilogy, Nanfang you jiamu (Quality Tea Grows in the South), focuses on the sociopolitical changes affecting the tea growers in the late Qing dynasty; part 2, Bu ye hou (The Marquis of the Night), is set against the background of the Sino-Japanese War, and part 3, Zhu cao wei cheng (A City Surrounded by Plants), deals with the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution. The main theme of the trilogy is how civilization conquers brutality and culture survives violence. Tea represents the human spirit. Well researched and rich with details about growing, picking, making, and drinking tea, the tea trilogy is considered more than a fictional work; it is regarded also as a scholarly work written by a specialist in the field. See also WOMEN.