Lesbian Love in Prison: Madame Zou by Zhang Yihe

In the afterword, the author writes:

“I had Zhang Yuhe (the protagnist) raise a blade and cut her own arm in Madame Zou to show that between women, there exists a love so fierce, it demands life in return.”

I found a physical copy of the book Madame Zou in a library outside China. The author is Zhang Yihe, whose name cannot be mentioned on Chinese social media. Born in 1942, she describes a lesbian relationship in 1960s China. Due to a well-known historical silence, narratives of Chinese lesbian lives from the Cultural Revolution period are extraordinarily rare.

Not only is the protagonist Madame Zou based on a real person, but Zou's “two mothers” are also drawn from life. They were a mistress-and-maid couple living in the Republican era (1912-1944) of China, inspired by neighborhood gossip the author overheard as a child:

“A warlord’s daughter from Hunan, married to a Shanghai businessman, comes home one day to find her wife and the maid being intimate in the bathroom.”

In the afterword, the author reflects on how she approached writing female same-sex desire in the novel:

“Madame Zou is about lesbian love in prison. There is naturally erotic expression in female same-sex intimacy. To ‘desexualize’ it would be unrealistic. But personally, I did not want to rely on overtly graphic sexual descriptions—no licking or groping, no hands and feet, no front and back, no tools and toys. It shouldn’t be that only through explicit lesbian sex can one attain lesbian identity.I’m not a scholar of queer theory—my understanding of these issues is limited. But I do know that in real life, female intimacy unfolds slowly, delicately, in twists and turns—from holding hands, to kissing, to caressing, to sleeping together.Where is the threshold of identity? I feel that if I can write the ambiguity and fluidity, the tenderness and intensity of love between women, that may better reflect the romantic tradition of Chinese literature—where nothing need be said too clearly. That was my goal in the novel. Whether I achieved it, I do not know.But I am stubbornly committed to a kind of clean, restrained writing.”

She continues:

“Two women tangled together, devouring each other. Zou Jintu led the way gently, like a trickling stream. Zhang Yuhe’s entire body trembled—it was as if she had fallen into that stream, water lapping up over the dry banks.Her breasts flushed under touch, her thighs grew damp with friction. In the pauses between kisses, Zhang Yuhe panted with her mouth wide open—she could hear the rush of her own blood.”

“This is the only passage of female lovemaking I wrote in Madame Zou. Just one passage. It’s deliberately vague, not meant to arouse. That ambiguity is what I wanted—to invite the reader’s imagination.With imagination, readers can fill in the emotional and physical gestures between women, drawing out richer, more complex scenes.”

In Madame Zou, two imprisoned women find, during a brief moment of outdoor release, an unexpected encounter—a stolen joy that offers a fleeting sense of freedom:

“They were sentenced to prison terms, but not granted lives. So whenever a chance came, they clung to it, cherished it with all they had—with lips, with eyes, with tongues and hands, searching each other out. Their eyes sparkled, glowed, locked in a gaze of half-laughter, half-hunger… Zhang Yuhe felt as if her whole life had been a waiting room for execution—except for Zou Jintu. Only this moment turned her life over, flipped it inside out.”

The two share no official relationship, no promises. When one hears rumours about the other with someone else, jealousy flares, prompting a confrontation. But the other, afraid of being pinned down, snaps back:

“What am I to you? What right do you have to order me?”

In response, the first woman holds out her hands, palms open:

“This.”

A pair of hands covered in wounds. Once, while they were climbing a mountain to cut wood, she had placed her hands beneath the other’s feet as support. Now, those hands are marked with scars.

“Even if there's no romance, there should at least be humanity. And besides, the affair between two women—it's already seeped into the body, into the scent.”

“Looking again at Zou Jintu’s innocent face, Zhang Yuhe was filled with shame, overwhelmed by the feeling that she owed her—a permanent debt. A lifelong debtor. It began with that sharp sickle, with the midnight stomach cramps, with a few scattered shirt buttons… And perhaps, driven by ‘need,’ this sense of owing would go on and on—something she could never repay. Was this a curse? Something irredeemable, into which one could only sink.”

Zhang Yuhe resolves to repay her—in blood.

“…Zou Jintu appeared! Zhang Yuhe gripped the knife tightly in her right hand, eyes wide, and suddenly slashed at her left arm. Blood gushed out at once. Then she plunged the blade into the wound, digging hard, as if trying to cut out a piece of flesh to show her.

Jiang Qidan rushed forward and seized the knife. ‘Are you insane?!’

Zhang Yuhe sobbed and cried out:‘Zou Jintu—Zhang Yuhe has blood too!’”

Madame Zou by Zhang YIhe