About the book:
As a female author, Zhao Mei has the propensity to write from a specifically feminist perspective and all the essays collected in this book are, without any exception, concerned with women's issues. They encompass her commentaries on prominent women figures in Chinese history such as Empress Wu Zetian, Princess Gao Yang and Shangguan Waner; reconstructions of the lives of talented women writers and actresses like Eileen Chang, Hu Die and Ruan Lingyu, who lived during the era of the Republic of China; and interpretations of the distinguished women writers in the West such as Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir and Marguerite Duras. In addition, the author sets out to decipher the racial characteristics of her own ethnic group and its racial identity. Finally she has also made serious reflections on the differences and distinctiveness of female writing.

About the contents:
As Bloody as the Setting Sun
The Shadow of the Sun in an Afternoon
A Flower Blossoming out of the Dust
The Ever - lasting Curtain Call
Beyond Her Literary Texts
Dancing in Shackles
The Ambitions of an Intelligent Woman
Eternity Interwoven with Love and Death
What Passion Means to Writing
She Refused to be a Bouquet of Untrimmed Flowers
Perishing in Solitude
Fall in Love Once, Or More Than Once
In Remembrance of Betty Friedan
The Exchange of Love
Memories Remote but Acute
Reading and the Sand - built Ancient Castle
In Search of a Different Kind of Order
Thus Speaks the Narrator
The Supremacy of Language Over Story
Why I Reject the Quotation Mark
Phrases and Short Sentences
As Transitory as Spring Flowers