Traumatic Memory and Narrative Healing in Contemporary Diasporic Chinese British Women’s Writing

Abstract

This chapter explores literary representations of traumatic (non-)motherhood experience in two Chinese British authors’ writings: Hong Ying’s autobiographic memories Daughter of the River (1997) and Good Children of the Flower (2009); and Xinran’s largely autobiographical work Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother (2010). Both authors combine personal stories and affective histories arising from the resonances of tragic events in China’s history and traumatic tales of women’s victimization, deprivation, and potential healing through telling and sharing experience. Offering a close reading of the corpus, this chapter employs a comparative approach to memory, history, and trauma studies in maternal discourse. I argue that underclass women have long been marginalized and silenced; their victimization can be seen as national grief. Their memories of suffering uncover a collective cultural trauma. Having written their own stories, or the stories of other women, both authors may provide an effective literary device for articulating visible and invisible atrocities and may offer a path toward healing. I consider the elements of gender, class, and sexuality in contemporary China, thereby making transnational and transcultural connections that enable the exploration of many ideas connected with being/not being a mother.