Literary memoir as caregiving object: polyphonic narrative in Xi Xi’s Mourning a Breast

Xi Xi’s literary memoir Mourning a Breast (1992) is one of the earliest Chinese publications to record and reflect on the experience of breast cancer, mastectomy, and post-mastectomy living. In her account of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, Xi Xi interweaves personal experience, disease symptoms, and reflective commentary, producing a distinctive text that interrogates the concepts of body, medicine, and care. Intrinsic to this process is her sustained engagement with objects as threads of her narrative and as triggers to her reflections. This article examines the multiple dimensions of object narrative in Mourning a Breast, arguing that the presence of objects enables Xi Xi to comprehend the trajectory of her breast cancer experience, to reconfigure her identity as a cancer patient, and to communicate and share this experience with a broader audience. By foregrounding materiality, Xi Xi destabilises cultural taboos surrounding cancer and reframes patient identity as a relational as well as ethical practice. Mourning a Breast is therefore not only a retrospective account of an individual illness experience journey but a caregiving object in itself that demonstrates how literary memoir can function as a therapeutic approach to care.