The Running Flame
A Novel
Published on 18. March 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
208 pages
978-0-231-21501-5 (ISBN)
Description
"She knew that if she didn't say her piece, that flame would never be extinguished; even after death, it would continue raging."
The Running Flame opens with its protagonist in prison awaiting execution, desperate to give an account of her life. Yingzhi, a girl from the countryside, sees opportunity in the liberal trends sweeping across China. After high school, she joins a song-and-dance troupe, which allows her to travel and opens her eyes to new people and places. But an unplanned pregnancy brings an abrupt end to all her youthful dreams. Trapped in a bad marriage, Yingzhi is driven to desperate measures-and eventually a shocking act of violence.
Fang Fang's explosive short novel inspired widespread social debate in China upon its publication in 2001. In exploring the difficulties of one woman shackled by patriarchal tradition against the backdrop of radical social change, The Running Flame bears witness to widespread experiences of gendered violence and inequality. Fang Fang evocatively captures both the heady feeling of possibility in China's roaring 1990s and its dark underside, as economic reform unleashed social dislocation in towns and villages. The novel draws loosely from interviews the author conducted with female death row inmates in a Chinese prison. Equal parts social critique and domestic horror, The Running Flame is a gripping, propulsive narrative that shines a light on the struggles of poor women in China's countryside.
The Running Flame opens with its protagonist in prison awaiting execution, desperate to give an account of her life. Yingzhi, a girl from the countryside, sees opportunity in the liberal trends sweeping across China. After high school, she joins a song-and-dance troupe, which allows her to travel and opens her eyes to new people and places. But an unplanned pregnancy brings an abrupt end to all her youthful dreams. Trapped in a bad marriage, Yingzhi is driven to desperate measures-and eventually a shocking act of violence.
Fang Fang's explosive short novel inspired widespread social debate in China upon its publication in 2001. In exploring the difficulties of one woman shackled by patriarchal tradition against the backdrop of radical social change, The Running Flame bears witness to widespread experiences of gendered violence and inequality. Fang Fang evocatively captures both the heady feeling of possibility in China's roaring 1990s and its dark underside, as economic reform unleashed social dislocation in towns and villages. The novel draws loosely from interviews the author conducted with female death row inmates in a Chinese prison. Equal parts social critique and domestic horror, The Running Flame is a gripping, propulsive narrative that shines a light on the struggles of poor women in China's countryside.
Reviews / Votes
This novel is both a searing social critique and an intimate portrait of one woman's fight foragency in an unyielding world. * Booklist * The book is a social commentary about the forces of market expansion in 1990s China and the social role of women, but it reads more like a thriller, with the ominous weight of womanhood around every corner. * Reading Taiwan and China * Revenge, murder, and gender-based hypocrisy in communist China drive the unsentimental narrative of Fang Fang's short novel The Running Flame. * Foreword Reviews * Berry's beautiful and accurate translation of The Running Flame will allow many more readers to gain deeper insight into contemporary Chinese women's lived realities. This work is an extremely valuable contribution to the body of texts by Chinese women writers that exist in English translation. -- Geraldine Fiss, University of California, San Diego This novel by one of China's most famous and incisive authors is a heartfelt but unflinching look into the lives of village women in the postsocialist People's Republic. It excavates the tangled emotions connecting money, marriage, and violence and reveals the machinery of gender as experienced by the rural poor. At the heart of the book, its own motivating fire, is a desire for more and better choices for China's young women. -- Nick Admussen, author of <i>Recite and Refuse: Contemporary Chinese Prose Poetry</i> Fang Fang is a powerful voice in contemporary Chinese literature, recognized for her steadfast attention to the underdogs of society. Through poignant and compassionate storytelling, she delves into the depths of the human condition, challenging readers to confront difficult truths with empathy and understanding. -- Zhang Ling, author of <i>Where Waters Meet</i> Fang Fang's The Running Flame is a stark but honest assessment of the lives lead by too many women still in China, whether they live in the country or the city. * The Book Beat * The Running Flame is the story of a crime, but it's also a story of gender politics and the effects of reform on the experiences of young women in rural China. The text moves fast but there is a poetry to the language, too, often in the form of startling nature metaphors. * Zona Motel * Set in the 1990s and based on interviews the author conducted with female death-row inmates, The Running Flame is a powerful reckoning with China's brutal patriarchy. * New Statesman * The impossibility of Yingzhi's circumstances, and the retrograde mentality of her tormentors, are the crux of The Running Flame: control and cruelty form part of the historical record. * Cha *
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-231-21501-5 (9780231215015)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
03/2025
1st Edition
Columbia University Press
€19.49
Available for download
Persons
Fang Fang is the pen name of Wang Fang, one of contemporary China's most celebrated writers. Her books in English include Soft Burial, also translated by Michael Berry. Fang Fang's account of the COVID-19 lockdown in her hometown, Wuhan Diary, was translated into twenty languages and garnered critical acclaim from major media outlets around the world.
Michael Berry is professor of contemporary Chinese cultural studies and director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author of several books, including Jia Zhangke on Jia Zhangke (2022) and Translation, Disinformation, and Wuhan Diary (2022). He is also the translator of numerous books, including Fang Fang's Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City (2020).
Michael Berry is professor of contemporary Chinese cultural studies and director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. A Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author of several books, including Jia Zhangke on Jia Zhangke (2022) and Translation, Disinformation, and Wuhan Diary (2022). He is also the translator of numerous books, including Fang Fang's Wuhan Diary: Dispatches from a Quarantined City (2020).