Bi Shumin

Bi Shumin in the travel

Bi Shumin is one of the most unusual and powerful female writers in China's current literary scene. She is a distinctive writer. She has many roles besides a writer, doctor, soldier, psychologist and mother. Her works are related with these different roles, which give her a distinctive perspective. The style of her writing is gentle and exquisite.

Youth

the youth of Bi Shumin in the army

Bi Shumin joined the army when she was 16 and practiced medicine for 22 years. She is much like writers Lu Xun and Guo Moruo, who also gave up medical science for the pen. She starts formal writing after twenty years’experience of a doctor. She has published two million words from 1987.

Literature

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  昆仑殇
  Her first work is <Kunlun shang>, which describes military training in Kunlun border area. Many young soldiers are freeze to death because of the terrible climate. The inspiration of this story comes from her real experience that serves in the army on the Tibetan Plateau. Many of her works are related with the experience. The experience of soldier makes her work heroic and generous, which distinguish with the trifling style of writing in 1980s.

• Bi Shumin was a doctor and psychologist. That adds much humanistic concern to her works. She pays attention to the existence and psychology of people in the city. She is good at showing the question of life and death.
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    生生不已
    <endless life> shows us a mother who lost her daughter and is pregnant with another child. The process of that makes us moved. <order death> analyzes death in a deep way.

• • 

    红处方
    <red prescription> shows her attention to the problem of drug taking.

• • 

    拯救乳房
    Save the Breast, focuses on the psychological trauma of breast cancer patients. It is the first novel written and published in China to take psychological therapy as its theme. Save the Breast is a serious work with a somewhat deviant title. The book's title is considered to be flirting with readers and luring people to buy it by suggesting sexual overtones. However, Bi denies the charge. "It is not an all-sided view to judge a book merely by its title," explained Bi. According to Bi, the title was picked by the publisher, People's Literature Publishing House, after careful and cautious consideration. Publishing house director Liu Yushan argued that by using the title, the house was not catering to prurient interests of some readers. Save the Breast does not intend to use sex as its selling point. Save the Breast deals with the stories of a group of breast cancer patients.

• Besides soldier and doctor, she is also a mother. The style of her writing also has mother’s gentle and wise. She has the perspective of women and writes the life of women. She has many essays about women. Such as <remind happiness>, .

• Bi shumin mix soldiers’ hardihood, doctors’ kindness and women’s keenness together. These make her works have both criticize of realism and humanistic concern of romanticism. These are uniqueness of Bi Shumin.