No.4 Eileen Chang

Introduction

Eileen Chang was one of the most famous Chinese-American writer of all time. She was born in Shanghai and has a really unhappy childhood in a broken family. She lives in wartime for most of her life and had to drop out of university. She showed her writing talents at an early age and in 1943, she was introduced to editor Shoujuan Zhou and became one of the most famous writers in China. She married twice and moved to New York with her second husband. She died in 1995 in her apartment in California

Selected Works

• Love in a Fallen City, 1943
• Eighteen Springs, 1951
• Bu Liao Qing, 1947
• Tai Tai Wan Sui, 1947
• The Golden Cangue ,1950
• Yi qu nan wang, 1964

Recognition&Awards

Chang is recognized as one of the best writers of all time in China and in US. Her works are really popular among Chinese readers and are still bestsellers ten years after her death. Many of her novels are adapted to films. A poet and professor at University of Southern California, Dominic Cheung, said that "had it not been for the political division between the Nationalist and Communist Chinese, she would have almost certainly won a Nobel Prize".

Influence

“Chang’s works frequently deal with the tensions between men and women in love, and are considered by some scholars to be among the best Chinese literature of the period. Chang's portrayal of life in 1940s Shanghai and occupied Hong Kong is remarkable in its focus on everyday life and the absence of the political subtext which characterized many other writers of the period” (Wikipedia). She is the inspiration and idol to many other writers. Her unique writing style and straight description to sex let her receive some criticism but also make her stand out among others. Her life has also been a legend, especially her own love stories and her two marriages. Her influence, however, are more on China than on America because she mainly writes in Chinese.