Mother and daughter

Wang Anyi's mother, Ru Zhujian (1925-98), never wanted her children to become writers. She did not wish them to labor under constraints as she often found herself doing.

For Ru, writing was probably a political activity. In 1957, her husband, playwright and director, Wang Xiaoping (1919-2003), was sent to a labor camp following a widespread crackdown on "rightists".

The following year Ru published Lilies and Other Stories, which was as ambivalent about the achievements of war as it was high on sentimentality and human bonding. Ru was pulled up and chastised and would probably have had to face graver consequences had it not been for the intervention of Mao Dun (1896-1981).