Shi Pingmei

Shi Pingmei (1902–1928), originally named Shi Rubi and known by the pen name Bowei, was a native of Pingding, Shanxi, and a prominent woman writer in Beijing during the May Fourth period. She is often grouped with Bing Xin, Lu Yin and Lin Huiyin as one of the talented women of the Republican era. In 1919 she entered Beijing Women's Higher Normal School and later taught at the affiliated middle school of Beijing Normal University. From 1924 she co-edited Women's Weekly and Rose Weekly with Lu Jingqing, developing a brief literary career between editing and writing. Her essay collections Taoyu and Ouran Cao are lucid and deeply felt, while her fiction Hongzong Ma and Pima Sifeng Lu shows delicate psychological insight into personal emotion and the anxieties of the age. Her work spans essays, social fiction and literary appreciation, with twenty-one titles held in the collection. She died of meningitis in 1928 at only 26, leaving a small but sincere and graceful body of writing that adds a poignant yet bright note to Republican-era women's literature.