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5 - Blind, but Not in the Dark

Realism Sheds New Light on Visual Impairment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

Sarah Dauncey
Affiliation:
University of Nottingham
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Summary

Chapter 5 brings analysis to more recent times with its focus on Tuina (Massage, 2008) by Bi Feiyu (b. 1964), a novel that explores the world of blind tuina massage therapists in Nanjing and is, ostensibly, based on conversations with real-life therapists there. Although a non-disabled person, Bi Feiyu argues that Tuina breaks away from received ways of writing about blindness and impairment more broadly to show the ‘human’ experience of blindness from within the experience of disability. The novel reveals the surprising (to the able-bodied gaze at least) ‘normalcy’ of disabled lives and emotions – greed, ambition, fear, despair, anger, love, desire and everything in between – debunking, as it does, the various prejudices surrounding the ‘world of darkness’. The way in which the novel highlights the individual/particular over the public/metaphoric certainly demonstrates its potential for the sharing of marginal perspectives and the personal reinterpretation of ‘difference’ and belonging; but, as the chapter also reveals, this does not mean that it can produce literature that fully avoids symbolism and allegory, or many of the more obvious pitfalls of the ‘narrative prosthesis’.

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Chapter
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Disability in Contemporary China
Citizenship, Identity and Culture
, pp. 135 - 160
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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  • Blind, but Not in the Dark
  • Sarah Dauncey, University of Nottingham
  • Book: Disability in Contemporary China
  • Online publication: 18 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316339879.006
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  • Blind, but Not in the Dark
  • Sarah Dauncey, University of Nottingham
  • Book: Disability in Contemporary China
  • Online publication: 18 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316339879.006
Available formats
×

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To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Blind, but Not in the Dark
  • Sarah Dauncey, University of Nottingham
  • Book: Disability in Contemporary China
  • Online publication: 18 September 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316339879.006
Available formats
×