Zhang Kangkang
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Zhang Kangkang (simplified Chinese: 张抗抗; traditional Chinese: 張抗抗; pinyin: Zhāng Kàngkàng; born as Zhang Kangmei (simplified Chinese: 张抗美; traditional Chinese: 張抗美), July 3, 1950, Hangzhou) is a Chinese writer.
Zhang was born into a family of Communist intellectuals. Her first name, Kang-Kang, means 'resistance-resistance.' She belongs to a generation affected by the Cultural Revolution.[1]
Zhang was among the young people sent to the remote countryside to be re-educated by the poor and lower-middle-class peasants.[1] At the age of 19, Zhang volunteered to go to Heilongjiang Province, where she faced a life marked by deprivation and abuse by the party cadres assigned to re-educate the new arrivals before going on to study in Harbin in 1977.[2]
Zhang's 1975 novel Dividing Line was one of the significant novels about the experiences of sent-down youth, a major literary genre during the Cultural Revolution.[3]: 179
She joined the China Writers Association in 1979 and was the deputy chairwoman of the Chinese Writers Association in Heilongjiang.[2]
She returned to the city eight years later after the death of Mao Zedong and was allowed to resume her studies. In 1979, Kang-Kang published her first work, 'The Right to Love.' The book reflects on freedom and resistance against an oppressor.[1]
She is married to a fellow writer, Jiang Rong, known for his 2004 novel, Wolf Totem.
