Yang (Asian languages and cultures, Macalester College, Minnesota) studies particular literary phenomenon in China that flourished in the late years of the 20th century--a time of great social
and economic changes in China--and subsequently subsided, in fact, has become pass矇. In her introduction, Yang describes the authors: "Driven by both self-expression and marketing, their
novels, typically semi-autobiographical, were either seen as providing a new kind of literature or dismissed as mere commercial pulp fiction. They also constituted in themselves an interesting
social phenomenon." The authors were women born in the 1970s, and they were known as "beauty writers," their work distinguished by a "visual spectacle ... and beautiful images." For this study
Yang travelled to China to conduct interviews and archival research; the translations are hers. Annotation 穢2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
