Fang Fang (born 1955), is the pen name of Wang Fang, a Wuhan-based author who came to International attention through her portrayal of land reform in the early years of the People’s Republic of China, and the Covid lockdowns.
Fang Fang was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, and her ancestral home is in Pengze, Jiangxi. She grew up in Wuhan, Hubei Province. In 1957, Fang Fang’s family moved to Wuhan, where she graduated from high school in 1974 and worked for four years as a laborer at the Wuhan Transportation Cooperative. In 1975, she began writing poetry and was admitted to the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Wuhan University in 1978.
Fang Fang is a prominent contemporary Chinese writer and public intellectual who has long been involved in literary creation and cultural research. She has served as the president and editor-in-chief of <i>Jinri Mingliu</i> magazine, as well as the editor-in-chief of <i>Changjiang Wenyi</i>. She was also the chairman of the Hubei Writers Association and a member of the National Committee of the Chinese Writers Association.
She graduated in 1982 and was assigned to work as an editor at Hubei Television, beginning her career as a writer in the same year. Her debut short story was <i>On the Caravan</i>. In 1988, her short story <i>Eighteen-Year-Old March</i> won the Second Hundred Flowers Award presented by <i>Fiction Monthly</i>. In 1989, her novella <i>Scenery</i> garnered widespread acclaim and won the National Excellent Novella Award. That same year, she was transferred to the Hubei Writers’ Association to pursue full-time writing.
To date, Fang Fang has published over 100 works, including novels, essays, and poetry. Her novels have won numerous national and international literary awards and have been translated into English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Spanish, and many other languages, gaining widespread international attention. Her best-known works include the novels <i>The Annals of Wuni Lake</i> (2000), <i>Water Under Time </i>(2008), <i>Wuchang City</i> (2011), <i>Soft Burial</i> (2016), and several novellas such as <i>Scenery</i> (1987), and <i>Grandfather in the Father’s Heart</i> (1990). Her writing style is primarily realist, with a focus on the fates of individuals during the development and changes of Chinese society, which has earned her many awards and accolades.
In 2016, she published <i>Soft Burial</i>, which discussed one of the most sensitive topics in the early history of the PRC: the party's violent campaign against the rural gentry (士) during the Land Reform Campaign. Influenced by the work of the independent scholar Tan Song, Fang describes the demise of this influential class of people, who once ran local society and were later caricatured as "landlords". The book was initially published by the People's Literature Publishing House (人民文学出版社), one of the country's most prestigious publishing houses. It received critical acclaim and won the Lu Yao Literature Award for historical realism. However, in 2017, Chinese authorities blacklisted the novel, and it was removed from bookstores and online platforms.
During the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak, Fang Fang wrote and published <i>Wuhan Diary</i> while the city was under lockdown. The diary detailed the social conditions and daily lives of the people in Wuhan during the early stages of the lockdown and became a focal point for social discussions. Fang Fang’s diary, with its straightforward and candid language, attracted wide attention but also sparked intense controversy. It was subject to censorship and deletion on online platforms, but it also received support from many scholars and writers.
Four years after the publication of Wuhan Diary, on January 25, 2024, <a href=”https://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/%E6%96%B9%E6%96%B9%E6%97%A5%E8%AE%B0”>Fang Fang wrote</a>:
<p style="margin-left:5%; margin-right:10%;"><i>“Four years ago, I did indeed start recording the pandemic on this day…I originally didn’t plan to write every day. Because, four years ago, I didn’t write anything, but two days after that, I happened to write two pieces. It was a coincidence. I probably thought at first: write when there’s something, stop when there’s nothing.”
“Unexpectedly, Wuhan suddenly entered the most severe period of the pandemic. Every day, something happened, So, I began writing every day.”
“I didn’t expect that some internet users, for the convenience of others, compiled all the previous records and named it Fang Fang’s Lockdown Diary and published it online. Thus, the term ‘diary’ was born. One overseas-educated scholar criticized me, saying that diaries should be kept in one’s drawer. I could only laugh at him. Because I didn’t know that this record would become a ‘diary’. … However, one thing must be said: Wuhan Diary is the greatest honor of my life. Even though it came unintentionally, it came like this, didn’t it? Not everyone gets the chance to experience such a severe and absurd online attack, and not everyone can endure this top-down and bottom-up storm of abuse. I was lucky to have encountered it and withstood it. Now I am still living well, firmly holding on to my beliefs and working hard at what I love to do.”
“Four years have passed, and I have always been glad I did this. Looking back, especially so. I think if I hadn’t made this record, even as someone who experienced it, I would have completely forgotten many details. So, compared to this honor, what are those low-level insults and the stones thrown by my colleagues? What does it matter if I can’t publish and release works?”</i></p>