Eileen Chang

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Eileen Chang (Traditional Chinese: 張愛玲; Simplified Chinese: 张爱玲; pinyin: Zhāng Àilíng) (September 30, 1920 – found dead September 8, 1995) was a Chinese writer. She had also used the pseudonym Liang Jing (梁京), which is almost unknown. Her works frequently deal with the tensions between men and women in love.

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[edit] Early life

Born in Shanghai on September 30, 1920, to a renowned family, Eileen Chang's paternal grandfather Zhang Peilun was a son-in-law to Li Hongzhang, an influential Qing court official. Chang was named Zhang Ying (张瑛) at birth. Her family moved to Tianjin in 1922, where she started school at the age of four.

When Chang was five, her birth mother left for the United Kingdom after her father took in a concubine. Chang's father became addicted to opium. Although Chang's mother did return four years later, following her husband's promise to quit the drug and split with the concubine, a divorce could not be averted. Chang's unhappy childhood in the broken family probably gave her later works their pessimistic overtone.

The family moved back to Shanghai in 1928. Two years later, Chang was renamed Eileen (her Chinese first name, Ailing, was actually a transliteration of Eileen) in preparation for her entry into the Saint Maria Girls' School.

During her secondary education, Chang was already deemed a genius in literature. Her writings were published in the school magazine. In 1939, she was accepted into the University of Hong Kong to study Literature. She also received a scholarship to study in the University of London, though the opportunity had to be given up due to the ongoing Pacific War. Hong Kong fell to the Empire of Japan on December 25, 1941. The Japanese Occupation of Hong Kong would last until 1945.

Chang had left occupied Hong Kong for her native Shanghai. She fed herself with what she was best at - writing. It was during this period when some of her most acclaimed works, including Qing Cheng Zhi Lian (倾城之恋) and Jin Suo Ji (金锁记), were penned.

[edit] First marriage

Chang met her first husband Hu Lancheng (胡兰成) in 1943 and married him in the following year. She loved him dearly, despite his being already married as well as labelled a traitor for collaborating with the Japanese. When Japan was defeated in 1945, Hu escaped to Wenzhou, where he fell in love with yet another woman. When Chang traced him to his refuge, she realized she could not salvage the marriage. They finally divorced in 1947.

[edit] Life in the United States

In 1952, Chang migrated back to Hong Kong, where she worked as a translator for the American News Agency for three years. She then left for the United States in the fall of 1955, never to return to Mainland China again.

In New York, Chang met her second husband, the American scriptwriter Ferdinand Reyer, whom she married in August 1956. Reyer was paralyzed after he was hit by strokes in 1961, while Chang was on a trip to Taiwan, and eventually died in 1967. After Reyer's death, Chang held short-term jobs at Radcliffe College and UC Berkeley.

Chang relocated to Los Angeles in 1973. Two years later, she completed the English translation of The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (海上花列傳, literally The Biography of Hai Shang Hua), a celebrated Qing novel in the Wu dialect by Han Bangqing 韓邦慶, 1856-1894. She became increasingly reclusive in her later years.

Chang was found dead in her apartment on September 8, 1995, by her Iranian-American landlord. Her death certificate states the immediate cause of her death to be Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD). According to her will, she was cremated without any open funeral and her ashes were released to the Pacific Ocean.

[edit] Works

  • 《秧歌》 (The Rice Sprout Song)
  • 《赤地之戀》
  • 《流言》 (Written on Water)
  • 《怨女》 (The Rouge of the North)
  • 《傾城之戀-張愛玲短篇小說集之一》
  • 《第一爐香-張愛玲短篇小說集之二》
  • 《半生緣》
  • 《張看》
  • 《紅樓夢魘》
  • 《海上花開-國語海上花列傳一》
  • 《海上花落-國語海上花列傳二》
  • 《惘然記》
  • 《續集》
  • 《餘韻》
  • 《對照記》
  • 《同學少年都不賤》
  • 《愛默森選集》 (The Selection of Emerson)

[edit] Works in English Translation

[edit] Bibliography

Chang's main works put on screen include:

  • Tao hua yun (1959) ("The Wayward Husband")
  • Liu yue xin niang (1960) ("The June Bride")
  • Xiao er nu (1963) ("Father takes a Bride")
  • Yi qu nan wang (1964)
  • Qing Cheng Zhi Lian (1984) (倾城之恋, Love in a Fallen City)
  • Yuan Nu (1988)
  • Hong Meigui Yu Bai Meigui (1994) (红玫瑰与白玫瑰, The Red Rose and the White Rose)
  • Ban Sheng Yuan (1997) (半生缘, Yuan of Half a Life, also known as Eighteen Springs)
  • Jin Suo Ji (金锁记, The Golden Cangue)

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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