Rooms of Their Own: A Cross-Cultural Voyage between Virginia Woolf and the Contemporary Chinese Woman Writer Chen Ran

Abstract

This chapter examines how Virginia Woolf, particularly her feminist literary manifesto A Room of One’s Own, shaped the fictions of the contemporary avant-garde Chinese feminist writer and essayist Chen Ran, whose works depict Chinese women’s subjective and introspective experiences and desires from three perspectives. First, Woolf’s idea of a room of one’s own lays the theoretical and metaphorical feminist basis for Chen Ran’s works. Next, Woolf’s idea of androgyny inspires Chen Ran’s concept of ‘gender-transcendent consciousness’. Third, Woolf’s call for women’s writing – in particular her expression ‘Chloe liked Olivia’ – becomes the literary source and inspiration for Chen Ran’s notion of sisterly affection, which turns out to be an excellent example of gender-transcendent consciousness. Strongly influenced by Woolf, Chen Ran has created many new images of Chinese women with rebellious and insightful outlooks such as the perspectives of Yun Nan from ‘Breaking open’ (2002) and Ni Niuniu from A Private Life.