Sanmao (author)

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Sanmao (三毛) (March 26, 1943 - January 4, 1991), literally "thirty cents", was the pseudonym of the popular Taiwanese author Chen Ping (陳平). She adopted her pseudonym from the acclaimed caricaturist Zhang Leping's most famous work "Sanmao", which tells the story of a waif called "Sanmao". In English she was also known as Echo, the first name she used in western European languages, or Echo Chan.

[edit] Biography

Sanmao was born in 重庆 Chongqing China, and the whole family moved to Taiwan later. She was said to have read the 《紅樓夢》 or 《红楼梦》 Dream of the Red Chamber, a famous Chinese classic, at the age of five and a half years old. In elementary school, she had read much literature. During her second year of high school, she shut herself up due to a traumatic incident, and refused to go to school. Her father bought many books for her to read at home, allowed her to take piano lessons, and practice painting.

From 1965 to 1969, she studied philosophy, and it was during this period that she experienced her first love. Things didn't work out, so she planned to go as far away as possible, and ended up in Spain.

Between 1967 and 1970 she studied in Spain, and then in Germany, and later found work in a law library in the state of Illinois in the US. Eventually, she returned back to Taiwan and began working as a teacher. Her fiance died, and it was at this time that she again left Taiwan and returned to Spain.

In 1974 she went to the Sahara desert (in what is now Western Sahara) and married a Spanish man named Jose 荷西, whom she met in Madrid 7 years before when she was a student. In 1976 she published her first work, entitled 《撒哈拉的故事》The Stories of the Sahara in 1976. With its immense success, her early writings were collected in a second book, published under the title 《雨季不再来》 Gone with the rainy season. Her writings continued to be published from that point on, and her experiences in the Sahara and the Canary Islands were published in several more books.

In 1979 her husband drowned while diving (there is still speculation that her husband did not die). In 1980 she returned to Taiwan, and in November of the same year, she traveled to Central and South America. These experiences were recorded in another of her books. From 1981 to 1984, she taught in a Taiwanese university. After this point, she decided to dedicate herself fully to writing.

At the age of 48, Sanmao died in a hospital in Taipei. Most people believe that it was a suicide, though some, most notably Zhang Jingran, claimed it was a murder. Her apparent suicide came as a shock to many of her readers.

Sanmao's books deal mainly with her own experiences studying and living abroad. They were extremely well-received in both Taiwan and the Mainland China, and they remain very popular. From 1976 to the time of her death in 1991, Sanmao published more than 20 books. She had also translated the comic Mafalda from Spanish to Chinese.