Here’s the story: two lovers, marriage and cruel separation by war shortly thereafter. The husband dies mysteriously, but the wife remains skeptical and embarks on a search for answers that lasts three eventful decades. She doesn’t give up until she finally learns of her husband’s ultimate sacrifice in the name of preserving peace.
Making its Stateside debut this month, Xinran’s Sky Burial is a remarkable testament to love. For two days in 1994, Xinran listened to Shu Wen’s story, after which Shu Wen, like her lost husband, disappeared. Almost a decade later, Xinran shares that haunting odyssey.
Xinran is no stranger to remarkable, often heartbreaking women’s stories. In her native China, she was a renowned journalist who hosted the first radio show in China to give voice to the everyday, personal issues of women. When she moved to London in 1997, those stories eventually became her best selling debut, The Good Women of China (2002). So important were these stories that Xinran fought off an assailant who attempted to grab her bag, which contained the only copy of the book’s original manuscript. While she admits today that “of course, life is more important than a book,” she vehemently recognized the need to preserve the stories of brave women who had been voiceless for far too long.
AW: The book ends with a touching letter addressed to Shu Wen. Do you have any updates on her whereabouts?
XR: I was told in Hamburg by a German journalist … that he had read on the Internet about a Chinese minister who met a Chinese woman who had been in Tibet for more than 30 years. I was so excited by this news that I contacted people in China immediately. Then I heard from a policeman about a Tibetan woman in Nantong, a small town near Shanghai, who went to Chengdu [the last Chinese city to which both Shu Wen and her husband traveled before entering Tibet] to search for news about her husband. So far, I haven’t heard anything [more]. By the descriptions, I feel that this Tibetan woman must be Shu Wen …
AW: You’ve got your amazing charity, Mothers’ Bridge of Love (MBL) (www.motherbridge.org), your regular column in the ‘Guardian’ newspaper, your worldwide talks, your writing, being a supportive wife and mother … how do you fit it all in?
XR: I write about my own experiences for the Guardian and for my books, so I don’t feel I need to create anything from my imagination, but I do struggle with my poor English. I talk around the world about Chinese women whom I have met and learned from –– and this is something I feel I have to do as a Chinese woman so that more people can understand us with our different voices and colors.
At MBL, I’m working with a great team –– in London, in China, together with many supporters from all over the world –– to reach out to adopted Chinese children, to Chinese children who are growing up in the West and to the poor children in the Chinese countryside. My work with MBL is my passion and fulfills my life beliefs.
I often feel that I am not a good mother and wife in terms of having enough time and energy because of what I do outside our home. But I am still trying to cook one more dinner for my family and to talk or play one more thing with my son, Panpan, who is already 17 years old.
AW: Is there anything you have not yet done that you would like to do?
XR: Oh, yes, a lot! I dream of stopping everything and just doing something for myself: to be a nearly 50-year-old daughter in a toy shop with some pink dolls and tiny house things, together with my mother, whom I have hardly had time to be with in my life …
AW: I was so sorry to hear about the theft of your computer –– it had the only copy of your newest book! Will you rewrite it?
XR: I have tried very hard since I lost the book six weeks ago. The most difficult part is that I don’t have the same feelings when I try to rewrite the story. [Instead] my next project might possibly be about my own life –– but only if I am brave enough to face my past …