Yu Xiuhua, a female poet with cerebral palsy from rural Hubei Province, has emerged as a major new voice in contemporary Chinese literature. Yu’s verse makes frequent references to the body, primarily her own body, and its unique properties, physical conditions, and passions. Drawing on nature imagery, Daoist philosophy, and her own experience with her mother’s illness and death, Yu reveals that the disabled female body not only poses challenges, but also offers insights, epiphanies, and other rewards. In so doing, Yu Xiuhua through her poetry provides a voice for women with disabilities and articulates in her verse something new and unique in the Chinese literary tradition: a female and disabled perspective.
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Steven L. Riep (2018) studied this question.