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Xinran

 

'Xinran Xue' is a British-Chinese journalist and broadcaster, born in Beijing,China in 1958. She often uses just Xinran, to identify herself as the author of work. She is best known for her books and novels exploring Chinese social issues. She has written extensively about Chinese women's experiences in China, which often focus on the extraordinary encounters she has in the course of her work. Her works also look in depth at the effect of a rapidly developing country on its people.

Xinran was born in Beijing in 1958. After graduating from college she became a journalist, working for China's official Radio Beijing station. In 1997 she moved to London and has since published over a dozen works that chronicle the lives of Chinese women.

In 1997 she moved to London, where she initially worked as cleaner. In London, she began work on her seminal book about Chinese women's lives The Good Women of China, a memoir relating many of the stories she heard while hosting her radio show ("Words on the Night Breeze") in China. The book is a candid revelation of many Chinese women's thoughts and experiences that took place both during and after the Cultural Revolution when [Chairman Mao] and Communism ruled the land. The book was published in 2002 and has been translated into numerous languages. Her second book Sky Burial was a fictionalized account of a true story involving a newlywed who spent 30 years looking for her lost husband in Tibet.  In 2008 she was also named as one of 100 of the world's most influential people by Time magazine.

She now has a regular column in The Guardian and many western media outlets. She is married to Toby Eady (whose mother is Mary Wesley) and has a son named Pan Pan Xue from a previous relationship. 

Other books by her in English are:

What the Chinese Don't Eat (2006). A collection of short articles originally published in The Guardian about the similarities and differences between China and the United Kingdom.

Miss Chopsticks (2007). Set in modern China, three young women called Three, Five and Six come from a tiny village to the city of Nanjing. Events are quite ordinary, shopping and food and work and small confusions, but it gives you a strong feeling for the unfamiliar social values. 

Xinran's works mainly revolve around women-related issues within Chinese culture. These works have focused on various topics such as the traditional constraints placed upon women and the struggles faced while attempting to fit in with modernity, the value systems encountered in rural parts of China, the various people she has encountered through her interviewing and research, as well as her life as an exiled writer.

In one of her books "The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices", Xinran hoped to share stories of Chinese women in their 70s and 80s to the readers. Through these stories, readers may guess the lives of these women and what they experienced in the last 60 years. Xinran's novel, "Buying a Bride: An Engaging History of the Chinese Marriage Market" examines the past and present of China's marriage markets. It is based on an extensive research on the topic and is an illuminating introduction to the Chinese marriage market and the women's choices and constraints within it.

Xinran's books include, "The Good Women of China", "The Sacred Secrets of Confucianism", "China Witness- Voices from a Silent Generation", "The Souls of Shanghai", "Sky Burial – an Epic Love Story of Tibet", "Message From An Unknown Chinese Mother" and "What The Chinese Don't Eat".

Xinran's works have been translated into several languages, and she has been widely acclaimed for her writing. She is a strong advocate for gender equality within Chinese society and has written several other books that illustrate the need for change. Those works include "Milk and Honey: Life in the Chinese Countryside", "Wild Swans: A Chinese Girl's Journey to Womanhood", and "Fragrance of a Woman: Of Love, Loss, and Survival in China".

Xinran is a powerful writer and her books have helped people to understand the lives of Chinese women over the past few decades. Her works show the immense contributions made by women within Chinese culture and present her personal experiences. Xinran's social commentary is often filled with compassion and understanding, and her writing is a testament to her journey towards the truth.

Bibliography

1. China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation
2. The Good Women of China: Hidden Voices
3. Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet
4. Messages from Myanmar
5. The Rice Paper Diaries
6. The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang Before and Beyond The Rape of Nanking
7. Buy Me the Sky: The Remarkable Truth of China's One-Child Generations
8. To China with Love
9. The Strength of the Hills: Stories of Tibet
10. When We Were Children: Voices from China's Great Leap Forward
11. The Milky Way: A Journey Through Chinese Culinary Heritage
12. Tibet Through the Red Box
13. The Lost Daughter of Happiness
14. Mrs. Mojito's Bird
15. China Cries: Voices from a Nation in Grief
16. When Trees Bloom Again
17. Tea from the Mountain: A Collection of Chinese Tea Tales
18. The Gateway to Heaven: Poems from a Chinese Monastery
19. Keys to the Hearth: An Explosion of Chinese Cuisine
20. How I Learned Chinese: Stories from Language Learners