Zhang Ailing

Zhang Ailing (born September 9, 1920, Shanghai, China—found dead September 8, 1995, Los Angeles, California, U.S.) was a Chinese and American writer whose sad, bitter love stories gained her a large devoted audience as well as critical acclaim.

A descendant of the famous late Qing statesman Li Hongzhang, Zhang attended a traditional private school in her early childhood. Her mother arranged a Western-style education for her at age nine; she learned English, oil painting, and piano. She became familiar with traditional Chinese novels such as Hongloumeng (Dream of the Red Chamber) and Hai shang hua lie zhuan (“A Biography of Flower from the Sea”), and she tried her hand at writing.

In 1939 Zhang enrolled at the University of Hong Kong. However, when her education there was halted two years later by the Japanese invasion, she returned to Shanghai. She pursued a writing career, beginning with film scripts and romantic works. In 1943 she came to prominence with the publication in journals of the novella Jinsuoji (“The Golden Cangue”) and the stories Chenxiangxie—diyilu xiang (“Scraps of Agalloch Eaglewood [a precious medicinal herb]—The First Charge in the Incense Burner”) and Qingcheng zhi lian (Love in a Fallen City; film 1984). Using the “trifling matters between the sexes” as the theme of her stories, she accurately described the desires, imaginations, and personalities of urban residents. The story “Hong mei gui bai mei gui” (1944; “Red Rose, White Rose”; film 1994) chronicles a young Chinese man’s sexual evolution. Her short-story collection Chuanqi (1944; “The Legend”) and her prose anthology Liuyan (1944; “The Gossip”) not only sold well but also successfully combined elegance and accessibility. When the Sino-Japanese War ended in 1945, however, Zhang’s reputation was damaged because she was the best-known writer in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation and her husband, Hu Lanchen, had collaborated with the Japanese. Nonetheless, her novel Ban sheng yuan (1950; “Eighteen Springs”), a tale of thwarted love, proved popular. It was later republished as Half a Lifelong Romance (1966) and served as the basis for a film (1997) and a television series (2003).

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Zhang moved to Hong Kong in 1952 and to the United States three years later. Two of her best-known novels were published during that period: Yangge (1954; The Rice Sprout Song; written in English but first published in Chinese), the work that won Zhang an audience in the West, and Chidi zhi lian (1954; Naked Earth). Both were critical of communist society. Zhang married Ferdinand Reyher, an American writer, in 1956 and became a U.S. citizen in 1960. In 1961 she traveled to Hong Kong via Taiwan. After writing several film scripts, she returned to the United States in 1962. Though Zhang held visiting positions at several American universities over the years, she became increasingly reclusive, revising her works and studying Dream of the Red Chamber. She wrote a novel, Yuannu (1966; The Rouge of the North), based on her earlier novella Jinsuoji; it was adapted as a motion picture in 1988. The novella Sè, jiè (1979; Lust, Caution), about a plan to assassinate a Japanese official in occupied Hong Kong, was filmed (2007) by director Ang Lee.

With the reprinting of a large number of her older works, there emerged in Taiwan and Hong Kong a revival of interest in Zhang. Starting in the mid-1980s, her popularity gradually spread to mainland China. Her works were collected in Zhang Ailing quanji, 16 vol. (1991–94; “The Complete Works of Zhang Ailing”).