Eileen Chang's life in brief
Chang met her first husband Hu Lancheng in 1943 and married in the
following year. She loved him dearly, despite the fact that he was already
married as well as having been labeled a traitor to 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
their marriage. They finally divorced in 1947.
In 1952, Chang migrated 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 the mainland 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
suffered from strokes in 1961, while Chang was on a trip to Taiwan
, and he eventually died in 1967. After Lai'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 an
English translation of The Biography of Hai Shang Hua (Hai Shang
Hua Lie Zhuan ), a celebrated Qing novel written in the Wu dialect.
Chang was discovered dead in her apartment on Sept. 8, 1995. According to a
will, she was to be cremated without a funeral. Her ashes were scattered in the
Pacific Ocean.
Chang's main works :
Tao Hua Yun (The Wayward Husband ) Liu Yue Xin
Niang (The June Bride ) Xiao Er Nu
(Father takes a Bride ) Yi Qu Nan Wang Qing
Cheng Zhi Lian (Love in a Fallen City ) Yuan Nu
Hong Meigui Yu Bai Meigui (The Red Rose and the White Rose
) Ban Sheng Yuan (Yuan of Half a Life, also known as
Eighteen Springs ) Jin Suo Ji (Record of a Golden
Lock )
Author: Jeff
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