THE term "women writers" is sometimes considered pejorative in the West, but not in China. The subject of women writers, how they are viewed and how some of them differ from male writers were discussed recently by English novelist and Booker Prize-winner A.S. Byatt and award-winning Chinese novelist Wang Anyi.

Byatt recently joined Wang Anyi, chairwoman of the Shanghai Writers' Association, for a discussion in No. 1 Waitanyuan, former British consulate building, now an elite club for financiers. Wang's remarks were translated.

Dame A. (Antonia) S. (Susan) Byatt was touring China for UK Now, a festival of British arts and creative industries. She took along the recent Chinese reprint of her most successful work "Possession: A Romance" (1990), as well as the first edition of her translated novel "Angels & Insects" (1994), which came out this year.

She took part in exchanges with Chinese contemporary writers and readers.

Born in 1936 in Yorkshire, Byatt studied in a Quaker secondary school, attended Cambridge, Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, and Oxford.

In various works she integrates knowledge of biology, history and philosophy and frequently writes fictional works about literature and academics.

Byatt won the Booker Prize in 1990 for "Possession: A Romance." In 1992 she won the Shakespeare Award from the Alfred Toepfer Foundation for her contributions to British culture.

"Possession" tells the story of two contemporary academics, a man and a woman, who are researching two 19th century writers, a man and a woman. They fall in love.

Wang Anyi, born in Nanjing in 1954, is celebrated for her detailed, often harsh realism, her irony and daring (for China) explorations of sexual love. She also writes about the old days in Shanghai. Her school education ended when she was around 12 during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and was sent to the countryside.

She has written numerous short stories and novels, including "The Song of Everlasting Sorrow" (1995, translated into English in 2008). It was one of the four winners in 2000 for the Mao Dun Literary Award, China's most prestigious prize given every four years. Short-listed for the 2011 Booker International Prize, it traces the life of a Shanghai beauty pageant winner from the 1940s to the present day. Her latest novel is "Tian Xiang" ("Heavenly Fragrance," 2011), referring to an ancient garden where women worked on elaborate embroidery.

Byatt and Wang, separated by more than 20 years in age and vastly different cultures and experience, were interviewed by Yu Shi, a female writer herself, at a forum on women writers. Below is the abridged dialogue between the three.

Q: A. S. Byatt, you once said women who write smart, demanding, academic novels are perceived by critics as strange and unnatural, "like a dog standing on its hind legs." You have been vocal in the criticism of sexism in the literary world, including the Orange Prize, which is limited to women novelists. Let's talk about this.

Byatt: In this country (UK), the word "academic" is average usage for "intellectual." At that time, I didn't mean women writers who write academic novels couldn't get good reviews. In the past 30 years, there were a lot of feminist movements and they all set standards for women ... I didn't have these problems and I got quite good book reviews.

As for the Orange Prize, it was one of the UK's most prestigious literary prizes annually awarded to a female author of any nationality for the best original full-length novel written in English; it recognizes the contribution of female writers. It's only available to women because many women writers thought they didn't get as much attention, criticism and reviews as men writers.

My own view is that if you want to be a good female writer, you must be a good writer first. You are not supposed to only talk to women about women. I hope my writings are not just for women and not just about women.

Besides, I think the prize itself is technically illegal in UK. You are not allowed to set such prize because the prize itself is sex discrimination.

Wang: There are also prizes specially for women writers in China but few people know about them. The topic is not sensitive in China.

As for me, when I had just heard the term "women writers" in 1980s, I had a strong aversion because I thought it lowered my status. But now I gradually accept this kind of title because I think women writers do differ from men writers. I don't mean that women writers are inferior to men. On the contrary, I think women writers have more advantages than men writers. For example, women writers have richer feelings because they pay more attention to details while men writers are always trying to write something big and grand, like an epic because they have a bigger world and have so many things to do. But writers should only focus on their feelings. So the characteristics of women are very suitable for literature. I feel quite lucky to be a female writer.

Byatt: My first novel, "The Shadow of the Sun" (1964), tells a story of a girl who grows up under the shadow of an authoritarian father. She is very afraid of going to college because she doesn't know what to do. She doesn't want to be like her mother who always stays in the kitchen and lives in anguish all her life, but neither does she want to go to college and be left over.

I am not like that girl. But I am a political feminist because I have to be one. When I was young, women in the UK couldn't open a bank account and that matters. Feminist movements have tremendously changed the life of women so that we should support them. However, I would like to learn from good writers, no matter women or men because I think men writers can also write good works full of deep feelings.

Q: Byatt's "Possession" and "Angels & Insects" integrate knowledge of biology, history and philosophy in a fictional world. Wang's "Tian Xiang" integrates history and philosophy with a fictional tale. How do you manage both profound historical knowledge and emotion when you write?

Byatt: Some people think that doing the research will kill the novel, but I don't think so. I like to learn new things when I write, they add color and images to your story and make it more precise and interesting. You can also get inspiration from research.

Wang: There is an ancient saying in Chinese, "Innocence is the virtue for women," suggesting that women should not know and learn too much. So we are very lucky to be modern women because we have access to a lot of information and knowledge. When I was writing my latest novel "Tian Xiang," I did a lot of research because I lacked knowledge. I didn't have the opportunity to receive a good education as the result of the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) and I discontinued studies in grade five - my biggest difference from A. S. Byatt, because she received such a good education. If I had received a better education, maybe I could have written "Tian Xiang" better. So it's very necessary for me to do research when I don't know something in the process of writing, and I learn a lot.

Q: I read that you (Byatt) started writing in boarding school and you didn't write "Princess Diaries" (a 2001 film, based on teen novels). You wrote about dragons and monsters. Readers of "Angels & Insects" are surprised you wrote so much about ants, society, biology, mythology and theology. It seems you are very interested in things that are mysterious and supernatural. Why?

Byatt: I was very depressed at that time and had really bad days. I discovered that I could either be interested in myself or be interested in everything. And I decided to be interested in everything, which proved to be good for me later. I read a lot of scientific writings in magazines at that time. I think curiosity is the most basic human emotion, like fear and love, that drives you to do these things. I like knowing about insects and I have tried to know ants because I think we should care about other creatures around us, not just about human beings.

Wang: I think that women and men do have differences in terms of curiosity. Women are much more curious than men as presented in the movie "Rear Window" (1954) by Alfred Hitchcock. Women are also more interested in mysterious things like ghosts and spirits and things that don't exist.

Q: What are the trends for contemporary female writers?

Byatt: We have a lot of excellent female writers now like Doris Lessing (1919-present) who writes political and scientific works, and Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. The list can be really long and they are very different from each other. Female writers are doing really well.

Wang: We still face a lot of challenges now. Although we have masterpieces like "Dream of the Red Chamber," the history of novel is still very short in China. And we have undergone so many big changes in the past 30 years and can hardly handle them. Besides, literature is now severely affected by the market. This is not good because literature is supposed to be something quiet and lonely but now it is now too public since there are so many book fairs and commercial activities. To make more profit, some people even exaggerate the characteristics of female writers by publicizing beautiful photos and "pink gossip" about them.