Bamboo Shoots After the Rain

A short story collection hailed as a "e;welcome and valuable addition to our growing knowledge about the inner lives and literary talents of Chinese women"e; (Amy Ling, author of Between Worlds: Women Writers of Chinese Ancestry). This remarkable anthology introduces the short fiction of fourteen writers, major figures in the literary movements of three generations, who represent a range of class, ethnic, and political perspectives. It is filled with unexpected gems such as Lin Hai-yin's story of a woman suffering under the feudal system of Old China, and Chiang Hsiao-yun's optimistic solutions to problems of the elderly in rapidly changing 1980s Taiwan. And in between, a dozen rich stories of aristocrats, comrades, wives, concubines, children, mothers, sexuality, female initiation, rape, and the tensions between traditional and modern life. "e;This is not western feminism with an Asian accent"e;, says Bloomsbury Review, "e;but a description of one culture's reality. . . . The woman protagonists survive both despite and because of their existence in a changing Taiwan."e;