Eileen Chang

Who was Eileen Chang?

Eileen Chang, also known as Zhang Ailing or Chang Ai-ling, was one of the most influential modern Chinese writers. Her most famous works include Lust, Caution and Love in a Fallen City.

Chang is noted for her fiction writings that 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 portrayal of life in 1940s Shanghai and Japanese-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. The Taiwanese author Yuan Qiongqiong drew inspiration from Eileen Chang. The poet and University of Southern California professor Dominic Cheung commented "had it not been for the political division between the Nationalist and Communist Chinese, she would have almost certainly won a Nobel Prize".

Chang's enormous popularity and famed image were in distinct contrast to her personal life, which was marred by disappointment, tragedy, increasing reclusiveness, and ultimately her sudden death from cardiovascular disease at age 74.