Interconnecting public interests with private concerns: biopolitics, female bodies, and guilt in Mo Yan’s Frog and Zola’s fruitfulness

China underwent a major change in population policies, from “more is better” during the 1950s-70s to the one-child policy that began in the early 1980s and ended in 2016. With reference to Agamben’s and Foucault’s theories of biopolitics, this article considers population policies as biopolitical mechanisms that subject individuals to national interest. Mo Yan is one of the contemporary Chinese writers who reflect on the sacrifice of individual rights and freedom for the common good, which is problematic in that it leads to objectification and politicization of female bodies and collective guilt on the part of executors and supporters of the policy. Resistance against collectivism, represented by Wang Dan in Mo Yan’s novel Frog (Wa, 2012), is a recurring theme in contemporary Chinese literature. While the Western literary tradition frequently celebrates individualism, some works like Emile Zola’s Fruitfulness (Fécondité, 1899) show concerns for extreme individualism that causes social alienation, self-centeredness, and personal guilt. Through a comparative reading of Frog and Fruitfulness from the perspectives of biopolitics, gender, and ethics, I argue that Frog, as a representative work of contemporary Chinese rural literature, engages in a dialogue with Fruitfulness and enriches world literature by providing a critical insight on population crisis and exploring tensions between individualism and collectivism and between public and private spheres, serving as a reference for reconsidering current demographic issues around the globe.