| Ling Shuhua | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1900 |
| Died | 1990 |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Nationality | Chinese |
Ling Shuhua (Chinese: 凌叔华)(1900–1990) was a Chinese modernist writer whose short stories became popular during the 1920s and 30s.
Ling Shuhua was the daughter of the fourth wife of a high ranking Qing official from the southern province of Canton who later served as the mayor of Beijing. In 1922 she enrolled, along with fellow female writer Bing Xin, in Yanjing University to pursue a degree in foreign literature. Soon after graduating, she married Chen Yuan, the founder of the important May Fourth Movement journal Contemporary Review. In 1927, the couple moved to Hunan so that Chen could teach at Wuhan University.
Through contacts she made with other writers in the same literature department at Wuhan University, Ling was able to start a correspondence with Virginia Woolf. The two writers maintained their correspondence between 1938 and 1941. Woolf agreed to read drafts of the memoirs Ling had begun writing. This manuscript was published in 1953, with the name Ancient Melodies. Ling dedicated this work to Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, whom she met in England in the 1940s.