Revolution, foreign occupation, and political, cultural, and economic upheavals defined mid-twentieth-century Chinese society. This new anthology, a sequel to the acclaimed first volume, compiled by Dooling and Kristina Torgeson and covering the early twentieth century, includes an impressive range of literary, personal, and journalistic responses to these tumultuous events. From succinct reportage of contemporary historical circumstances to comic accounts of twentieth-century urban living to carefully stylized modernist works of fiction, the selections in this anthology reflect the diversity, liveliness, humor, and surprising cosmopolitanism of women's writing from the period. This collection also reveals the ways in which women writers imagined and inscribed new meanings to Chinese feminism.

Biographical information on the writers—including Yang Gang, Bai Wei, Hu Lanxi, Yang Jiang, Zong Pu, Chen Ruoxi, and others—introduces the selections from their works. Dooling's critical introduction and bibliographical materials further enrich readers'understanding of the role of women's writing in Chinese literary modernity.