Women\u27s Wartime Life Writing in Early Twentieth-Century China

In her article Women\u27s Wartime Life Writing in Early Twentieth-Century China Li Guo discusses military diaries, prison memoirs, and autobiographical reportages. These documents offer rich insights into the political endeavors and military mobility of women. Guo analyzes Bingying Xie\u27s 1928 war diary about the Chinese nationalists\u27 northern expedition, Langi Hu\u27s 1937 book about anti-Japanese activism, and Lang Bai\u27s 1939 reportage about the Sino-Japanese War and argues that these texts allow women to reconfigure the discourse of nation through experimental life writing in order to develop the genre with tales of valor, hope, struggle, and heroism. Guo argues that contrary to the perception that early twentieth-century Chinese women\u27s military activism was facilitated through assimilation into male identities, Xie\u27s, Hu\u27s, and Bai\u27s texts show that women celebrated their womanhood through mass mobilization and dedicated services at the front as soldiers, activists, and reporters