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Eileen Chang

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Eileen Chang
張愛玲
Born September 30, 1920(1920-09-30)
Shanghai, China
Died September 8, 1995 (aged 74)
Los Angeles, California, United States
Pen name Liang Jing
Occupation novelist, essayist, screenwriter
Writing period 1932-1995
Genres Literary fiction
Spouse(s) Hu Lancheng (1944-1947)
Ferdinand Reyer (1956-1967)

Eileen Chang (traditional Chinese: 張愛玲; simplified Chinese: 张爱玲; pinyin: Zhāng Ailíng) (September 30, 1920–September 8, 1995) was a Chinese writer. She also used the pseudonym Liang Jing (梁京), though very rarely. Her 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 work describing life in 1940s Shanghai and occupied Hong Kong is remarkable in its focus on everyday life and the absence of the political subtext which characterised many other writers of the period. Yuan Qiongqiong was an author in Taiwan that styled her literature exposing feminism after Eileen Chang's. A poet and a 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".[1]

Contents

[edit] Early life

Chang was born in Shanghai on September 30, 1920 to a renowned family. Her 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 in 1922 to Tianjin, 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 and later became addicted to opium. Although Chang's mother did return four years later following her husband's promise to quit the drug and separate from the concubine, a divorce could not be averted. Chang's unhappy childhood in the broken family was what likely gave her later works their pessimistic overtone.

The family moved back to Shanghai in 1928, and two years later, her parents divorced, and she 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. By now, Chang had started to read Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. In 1932, she wrote her debut short novel.

Even in secondary school, Chang already displayed great talent in literature. Her writings were published in the school magazine. After a fight with her stepmother and her father, she ran away from home to stay with her mother in 1938. In 1939, Chang received a scholarship to study in the University of London, though the opportunity had to be given up because of the ongoing war in China. She then went on to study literature at the University of Hong Kong instead. Chang met her life-long friend Fatima Mohideen (炎樱) while at University of Hong Kong. When Chang was just one semester short of earning her degree, 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. Her original plan was to finish the degree at Saint John's University, Shanghai, but it lasted for only two months. Lack of money was one factor for her to quit the university. She refused to get a teaching job or to be an editor, but was determined to do what she was best at - writing. In the spring of 1943, Chang made a fateful trip to meet the editor Shoujuan Zhou (周瘦鹃) to give him her writings - the rest was history, as Chang then became the hottest writer in Shanghai in 1943-1944. It was during this period when her most acclaimed works, including Qing Cheng Zhi Lian (倾城之恋) and Jin Suo Ji (金锁记), were penned. Her literary maturity was beyond her age.

[edit] First marriage

Chang met her first husband Hu Lancheng (胡兰成) in the winter of 1943 and married him in the following year in a secret ceremony. Fatima Mohideen was the witness. At the time they had a relationship, Hu Lancheng was still married to his third wife. Chang loved him dearly in spite of this, and also in spite of his being labeled a traitor for collaborating with the Japanese.

After the marriage, Hu Lancheng went to Wuhan to work for a newspaper. When he stayed at a hospital in Wuhan, he seduced a 17-year-old nurse, Zhou Xunde (周训德), who soon moved in with him. When Japan was defeated in 1945, Hu used a fake name and hid in Wenzhou, where he fell in love with yet another countryside woman, Fan Xiumei (范秀美). 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 the spring of 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.

[edit] Second marriage

In MacDowell Colony, Chang met her second husband, the American screenwriter Ferdinand Reyher, whom she married on August 14, 1956. While they were briefly apart (Chang in New York City, Reyher in Saratoga, New York), Chang wrote that she was pregnant with Reyher's child. Reyher wrote back to propose. Chang did not receive the letter, but she called the next day telling Reyher she was coming over to Saratoga, New York. Reyher got a chance to propose to her in person, but insisted that he did not want the child.

After their marriage, they stayed in New York City until October 1956 before moving back to MacDowell Colony. Chang became a U.S. citizen in July 1960, then went to Taiwan to look for more opportunities (October 1961 - March 1962). Reyher had been hit by strokes from time to time, and eventually became paralyzed. Reyher died on October 8, 1967. After Reyher's death, Chang held short-term jobs at Radcliffe College (1967) and UC Berkeley (1969-1972).

[edit] Translation work

Chang relocated to Los Angeles in 1972. Three years later, she completed the English translation of The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai (海上花列傳, literally Biographies of Shanghai Flowers, or Courtesans), a celebrated Qing novel in the Wu dialect by Han Bangqing 韓邦慶, 1856-1894. The translated English version was found after her death, among her papers in the University of Southern California, and published. Chang became increasingly reclusive in her later years.

[edit] Death

Chang was found dead in her apartment on Rochester Avenue in Westwood, California on September 8, 1995, by her landlord. That she was found days after her death testifies to her seclusion. Her death certificate states the immediate cause of her death to be Arteriosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease (ASCVD). She was survived by her brother Zhang Zijing (张子静) (December 11, 1921- October 12, 1997). Neither Chang nor her brother had any children. Chang's life-long friend Fatima Mohideen died a few months earlier, in June 1995 in New York. According to her will, she was cremated without any open funeral and her ashes were released into the Pacific Ocean.

She asked in her will to give all of her possessions to Stephen Soong (who died December 3, 1996) and his wife Mae Fong Soong in Hong Kong. After Stephen Soong and Mae Fong Soong's death, their daughter and son, Elaine and Roland, are the Estate of Eileen Chang's works.

[edit] Works

 This article is incomplete and may require expansion or cleanup. Please help to improve the article, or discuss the issue on the talk page.
  • 《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》(Eighteen Springs)
  • 《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》
    • 惘然記
    • 色，戒 (Lust, Caution)
    • 浮花浪蕊
    • 相見歡
    • 多少恨
    • 殷寶艷送花樓會
    • 情場如戰場
  • 《續集》
  • 《餘韻》
  • 《對照記》
  • 《愛默森選集》 (The Selection of Emerson)
  • 《同學少年都不賤》
  • 《沉香》
  • 《小團圓》

[edit] Works in English translation

[edit] Films

Chang wrote several film scripts. Some of her works have been filmed and shown on the silver screen as well.

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "" Eileen Chang, 74, Chinese Writer Revered Outside the Mainland"", "New York Time", 13 September 1995, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEED71E3DF930A2575AC0A963958260 

[edit] External links


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