THE SERENITY OF WHITENESS: Stories by and About Women in Contemporary China, <i> selected and translated by Zhu Hong (Ballantine/Available Press: $9).</i>

The stories in this exceptional anthology suggest that the transition from traditional Chinese culture to Marxism has done little to improve the status of women. The authors describe the struggles that women must undergo in their efforts to find fulfillment in a career and/or love under a dehumanizing regime that regulates the most intimate details of life, reducing human feelings to so much paperwork. In “The Sun Is Not Out Today” by Lu Xin’er, the staff at an abortion clinic ignores the emotional needs of the patients--but insists on having the proper forms filled out. The daughters in Wen Bin’s “Silent Commemoration” realize--too late--that their zealous application of Maoist philosophy has lead them to oppress their mother as cruelly as her in-laws did before the revolution. In “The Loudspeaker,” Bao Chuan describes how the enforced camaraderie of the socialist regime has destroyed the harmony that once existed among the families in a residential building. During much of the 20th Century, Party officials insisted that women be depicted in Chinese fiction only as metaphors or symbols--to describe them as individuals would reflect bourgeois ideals and weaken the effectiveness of literature as a tool in the class struggle. The insightful if often depressing stories in Zhu Hong’s anthology reveal the overdue emergence of new, authentically female voices in contemporary Chinese literature.