Li Ang

Appreciations

Quotes about Li Ang

A 1930s Shanghai case of a woman who murdered her husband inspired Li Ang to write this deep and harrowing novel that was an outrageous literary sensation. In a small coastal Taiwanese town, the pig butcher's brutality towards his new young wife knows no bounds. She becomes scorned by her neighbors who condemn her for screaming aloud. Lin Shin, isolated, despairing, is finally driven to madness and kills him with his own meat cleaver. "May be the most frightening book ever written about women oppressed by men."—Los Angeles Times

‘Li Ang’s novel may start in a feminist rage against male oppression, but it goes much further than that.’ —Times Literary Supplement

"The story never loses the readers sympathy by descending into overkill or sentiment . . . The Butcher’s Wife is mesmeric and unflinching."—Guardian

“The Butcher’s Wife is not pornographic, but it omits few details or four-letter words…Li Ang vividly evokes the landscape, routines and rituals of the town, and in this seamless translation, her prose is often imaginatively spare and luminous.”—New York Times Book Review

“Li Ang’s theme is women’s quest for self-fulfillment in a male-dominated society…a lively exploration of the psychology of women.”—Asiaweek

“The Butcher’s Wife offers not a single evasion or pretense about the reality and pervasiveness of sexual oppression. Li Ang has written this book with the dedication of a daughter and the responsibility of a woman.” —Alice Walker

“Completely convincing.” —Sunday Times

“In her impressive fictional oeuvre she has thematized sexuality, elaborating on the clash of values between modern Western and traditional Confucian ethics.”— Modern Chinese Writers: Self-Portrayals

“The Butcher’s Wife…A magnificently gory morality tale, set in a Taiwan village of the 1930’s and based on the true-life story of an equally bloodcurdling Shanghai murder case…” —Kirkus Reviews

“…Besides her frank treatment of sexuality, Li should also be read for her experiments in modernistic writing, her exploration of social and women’s issue, and, above all, her portrayal of the feminine psyche.”— K. C. Leung, World Literature Today

“做為現代台灣情慾迷宮的引路人，李昂以怨懟與縱情的風格，刻畫慘淡的世紀末愛情視景。她像個舞文弄墨的巫者，召喚我們進入一個曲折詭媚、彌漫蠱邪崇的世界－那不可眼說的世界；她代替我們口吐狂言或穢言，坐實了我們羞於啓齒的戒懼及幻想。”
－ 王德威- 北港香爐人人插

Translation of the quote above

“As a pathfinder in a labyrinth of love and sex in the modern Taiwanese society, Li Ang, with her rancorous and uninhibited writing style, depicts a bleak visual scene of fin de siècle love. With In her writing, she is like a shaman who summons us into an intricate and bewitching world filled with voodoo and evil worshipping- — that unspeakable world; however, she is the one who utters the madness and sometimes the filth for us, and thus she realizes what we forebode find forbidden and fearful, and fantasize about, but are ashamed to speak of.” — David Der-wei Wang for Beigang Incense Burner