Ying Chen

Who is Ying Chen?

Ying Chen is a Chinese Canadian author. She writes in French. Her surname in Chinese is "Ying".

Born in 1961 in Shanghai, she now lives in Vancouver and is the mother of two children. She obtained a degree in French language and literature from Fudan University in 1983 and worked as a translator and interpreter before moving to Montreal in 1989. She later lived in Magog, Quebec before moving to Vancouver in 2003.

Ying Chen's novels include La mémoire de l'eau, Les lettres chinoises, L'ingratitude, Immobile, Le champ dans la mer and Querelle d'un squelette avec son double. She practices a lean, polished and deceptively simple writing style, free of flourishes and excess verbiage. As a child, one of her schoolteachers once told her "the most simple is the most beautiful", and she has retained this idea.

In addition to French and Mandarin, she also speaks some Russian, Italian and English.