The Last Communist Virgin by Wang Ping + Author Interview [in Bloomsbury Review]
Through loosely connected short stories, Wang’s second collection straddles both worlds of her native China with her adopted America – and the undefinable spaces in between. From the young Chinese girl who sees too much in “Where the Poppies Blow,” to the naive immigrant struggling to understand her new world in the title story, to the bewildered older immigrant who returns to his an unrecognizable Beijing in “The Homecoming of an Old Beijing Man,” Wang explores the new fluidity of the modern immigrant experience where borders are anything but static.
Building Bridges: The Dual Life of Wang Ping: An Interview
The one thing the admirably prolific Wang Ping hasn’t yet written is her memoir. Not that a few details here and there of her astonishing life story haven’t made their way into her eight published books, but I’m certain her readers would appreciate hearing much more than the glimpse I can offer here.
Born in Shanghai to a naval officer father and a music teacher mother, Wang grew up on a small island in the East China Sea. When the disastrous Cultural Revolution began in 1966, Wang was in the second grade. Life as she had known it ended then, when her parents were imprisoned and tortured, leaving Wang and her younger siblings to be brought up by their grandmother. Her formal education, too, was over, as Chairman Mao’s government tried to purge the country of literature and art – anything that smacked of what was considered representative of the liberal West. … [click here for more]
Author interview: The Bloomsbury Review, May/June 2008
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 2007
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