Catch catch

This article describes the Chinese writer. For the Chinese ichthyologist (1962–2010) see Fang Fang Kullander

Fāng Fāng , 方 方, (* 1955 in Nanjing ) is a Chinese writer .

biography

At the age of two, Fang Fang and her family moved to Wuhan , where she still lives today. After graduating from high school in 1974, she worked as a loading worker for four years. Her literary work has its origins in 1975. When, in 1978, two years after the end of the Cultural Revolution , the universities reopened their doors, she entered Wuhan University , where she studied Chinese literature until 1982. After graduating, she was assigned to the Television Series Department of the Hubei Provincial Television Station as an editor. But she not only wrote scripts for TV series, but also published her first novel Auf dem large Transportwagen (大篷车 上Dà féng chē shàng ) that same year . She achieved her breakthrough with the story Outlook (风景Fēngj ihrng ), published in 1987 : In 1989 she received the "National Prize for Outstanding Novels" (全国 中篇小说 优秀 作品 奖 Quánguó zhōngbiān xiǎoshuō yōuxiù zuòpǐn jiǎng). This story is considered to be one of the first works of the genre of neorealism (新 写实 主义 xīn xiěshí zhǔyì), which was emerging in China at the time .

In 1988, Fang married Fang and gave birth to a daughter a year later. After eleven years of marriage, she divorced in 1999. At the beginning of the new millennium, she also worked for some time as editor-in-chief of the magazine “ Personalities of Today” (今日 名流 杂志Jīn rì míngliú zázhì ).

The Wuhan Diary

In 2020, her Wuhan Diary , a diary about the events during the quarantine in the metropolis of Wuhan in the Chinese province of Hubei, hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, will appear on social networks . Fang Fang begins their entries on January 25, 2020, two days after the lockdown in Wuhan City, and ends with the 60th entry on March 24, the day the lockdown is lifted for Hubei Province. The lockdown in Wuhan city didn't end until April 8th. Her blog was originally localized with the provider Sino Weibo, but after several blocks she switched to other, unspecified services, where individual posts were also repeatedly deleted. In their information, Fang Fang mostly refers to a doctor friend, but explains:

When I write about a “doctor friend of mine”, it should be clear that it is more than one person. (Entry from February 16, p. 105)

In her articles, she describes life under the two-month total quarantine and the troubles it makes to ensure the daily food supply. Again and again she praises the organization through the local institutions and the helpfulness of friends and neighbors. However, she also poses the question of responsibility for the misery, whereby she primarily sees the local and regional authorities, but also the party secretary and the head of the Wuhan Central Hospital as responsible, because four doctors died there and more than 200 employees ill. (Entry from March 9, p.235) Your summary of this question is sobering:

But I would like to maintain that there is consensus on the question of the pursuit of responsibility across all classes. It has to be done. [...] Actually, if things were right, at least a few of those involved in the matter should have long since resigned themselves. That was even the case with SARS at the time. But still not a single one here in Hubei! Admirable! The fun part is that they used to blame each other, officials on experts, experts on officials. Now everyone agrees: the Americans can bear all responsibility. (Entry from March 23, p. 329)

The Wuhan Diary is an inventory of losses, a document of disorientation. The eyewitness report by Fang Fang deals with the unofficial barter economy for breathing masks (gifts for guests, bribes), the fading out of the pandemic in the Chinese media and the changed feeling of space, the moving closer together of people on earth in the face of a catastrophe.

The posts on her blog were usually removed by the censors within about an hour, but still shared millions of times in China and abroad, as she had 3.5 million followers even before the diary entries began. While supporting comments were deleted in addition to the posts, insults from Fang Fang remained. When the two publishers Harper and Collins and Hoffmann and Campe announced the publication of the diary in English or German book form, the mood turned against her and she was referred to as a "traitor" and "puppet of the West". The fact that initially 10 Chinese publishers had also made offers to publish the diary in book form, but did not maintain them in view of the mood against the author, testifies to the immense domestic political and social pressure that the Communist Party is able to build up.

• Fang Fang: Wuhan Diary: Diary from a locked city. (German edition) Michael Kahn-Ackermann (translator), Hoffmann and Campe, HH, 2020. 352 pages. ISBN 978-3-455-01039-8 . Also as an eBook.

Novels

(Since no German translations have appeared so far, it is advisable to take a look at France, where three works by Fang Fang are already available :)

• Une vue splendide , (trad. Par Dany Filion), Philippe Picquier, 1995 (Picquier poche). (风景Fēngjǐng ; view )
• Soleil du crépuscule , (trad. Par Geneviève Imbot-Bichet et Yu Hua), Stock, 1999. (落日Luòrì ; Setting sun )
• Début fatal , (trad.par Geneviève Imbot-Bichet), Stock, 2001. (我 的 开始 就是 我 的 结束Wǒde kāishǐ jiù shì wǒde jié shù ; My beginning is also my end )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Felix Stephan: Review - Wuhan Diary by Fang Fang. Retrieved August 16, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Fang Fang: The 'Conscience of Wuhan' Amid Coronavirus Quarantine. Retrieved April 29, 2020 (American English). 
3. ↑ Fabian Kretschmer: The chronicler of Wuhan . In: The daily newspaper: taz . April 27, 2020, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 15 ( taz.de [accessed April 30, 2020]).
4. ↑ Friederike Böge: The sixty days of Wuhan. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . April 18, 2020, accessed April 21, 2020 .