Women Screenwriters of Early Sinophone Cinema: 1916–1949

This chapter presents women screenwriters in early Sinophone cinema-defined to include films made by ethnic Chinese filmmakers, or, in Chinese languages, both in and outside China-from 1916 to 1949. Among silent film writers, the focus is on Chinese-American Marion E. Wong (1895-1969), China's first female screenwriter Pu Shunqing (1902-1998), and writer-actress Ai Xia (1912-1934). In the early talkie period, Esther Eng (1914-1970) and Wan Hoi Ling (1910-19??), who worked in Hong Kong, the United States, and Singapore, are compared with Sheng Qinxian (1921-2017) and Eileen Chang (1920-1995) who joined film productions in Shanghai. While paying attention to the linkage between women writers and their working conditions in their respective film industries, the objective is to construct a women's trajectory in screenwriting and its influence on later Sinophone production, which split into parallel streams in Mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Chinese diasporas. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.