Wang's works

Baotown (1989)

Set in vague time and location, Baotown depicts life in a small village after a flood. Wang Anyi tested her writing style, a variation from the grand narration popular at that time. The work echoes the Xungen (searching the root) Movement popular in the late 1980s, which held that Chinese identity needs to be reconstructed through appreciation of local cultures after being destroyed in the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). What Wang is trying to emphasize is the traditional benevolence and uprightness of rural society.

The Song of Everlasting Sorrow (1995)