On the occasion of Women’s Day, Carole Martinez, a famous modern French writer, was invited to deliver a speech in Foreign Language School of South China University of Technology. Aimed to “Justifying Women’s Identity” she gave an in-depth introduction to the mission of modern female writer.

Carlore Martinez, born in 1966, is a Hispanic French novel writer as well as a writer of children’s literature. She has published TheThreads of the Heart, The Scream of the Books, The Witness’s Eye and A Whispering City. Her debut, The Threads of The Heart, won Prix Renaudot Prize, West France “An Amazing Traveler” Prize, Lette Ulysses Award for the Art of Debut in 2007. A Whispering City won Prix Goncourt in 2011 and Prix Marcel Ayme in 2012.

Starting with The Threads of the Heart, Miss Martinez depicts the unfair treatment women experienced in European history. Based on the story of the writer’s great grand mother, the book develops a description of the silent women bearing the unjust criticism from various religions as well as the vile persecution and discrimination from the society. Her study surprises students by the great resemblance between women in different parts of the worlds, which corrects Chinese students’ original opinion of women’s lives in west world. We used to think that women in the west world lived a better life and that they enjoyed higher social status and more independence than women in China. Her speech reminded the present students of the fact that the equal rights and status women enjoy in modern society need many women’s great efforts.

Miss Martinez stated, “There are a bunch of male writers who are writing about women, however most of the times they fail to tell the story from the stand of a woman. It is almost impossible for male writers to truly understand women, their feelings and their thoughts.” Therefore, she called for female writers to produce more feminine literature, write feminine life from the eyes of a woman, voice the voice of a woman, let out a woman’s true feeling and defend a woman’s right. All these are very appealing to the present female teachers and students.

Besides, Miss Martinez also emphasized that literature should come from reality. Only when writers work really hard to imagine and create can they produce remarkable literature works.  Reported by Song Xiaoqing