Master storyteller continues to delight

Cover of Birth Throes. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The book, as the title suggests, is woven around the travails of birth, and she went back to her hometown to better understand the culture and rituals of bringing a new life into the world.

"To maintain the authenticity of details, I managed to go inside the delivery room and talked with the midwives," she said.

Critic and poet Tang Jiadu said that the result was a story "I have been craving to read".

Zhang has shaped a piece of history's sweep with a delicate chisel to form the female perspective, Tang said.

Zhang said her grandmother gave birth to 11 children in the tough days of the early 20th century. Ten survived, against the odds when you consider the rudimentary healthcare available, with a gap of 20 years between the eldest and youngest.

"Looking from a distance, I feel the independence and courage of the women in my mother's family are inspirations for my writing," Zhang said.

The grandmother also made her consider different roles the two genders have in the long run of history and the male characters are fleshed out just as much as the female ones.

In the turmoil of the times, men often devoted everything including their lives for a better future, while the women were tested in different ways as they carried on with life on the home front and the difficulty of raising families and giving hope, through birth.

"It's never easy to live," she said, "and the humblest hope the newly arrived babies bring is the thing that lights the fire."