The spirit of Deer town : and the redemption of Li Ang's uncanny literary home

In this essay, Darryl Sterk, a sinologist based in Taiwan, traces the shifts in the representation of the specters that have always haunted Deer Town, Li Ang's literary home. He argues that over the course of her long literary career, Li Ang has questioned her early assumption that modernity and women's liberation required the transcendence of local religious traditions; in her more recent works, Li Ang suggests that faith in these traditions effects a therapeutic re-enchantment of familiar places in the modern world.