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Common Knowledge

Canonical name: Chang, Eileen
Legal name: 張愛玲
Other names: Zhang Ying (birth)
张煐
 Zhang Ailing
Birthdate: 1920-09-30
Date of death: 1995-09-08
Gender: female
Nationality: China (birth)
USA
Birthplace: Shanghai, China
Place of death: Westwood, California, USA
Places of residence: Shanghai, China
Los Angeles, California, USA
Hong Kong, China
Education: University of Hong Kong
Saint John's University, Shanghai
Saint Maria Girls' School
Occupations: writer
novelist
translator
Organizations: United States Information Service
Short biography: Eileen Chang [born Zhang Ying, renamed Zhang Ailing] (September 30, 1920 – September 8, 1995) was one of the most influential modern Chinese writers.

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 Chiung-chiung drew inspiration from 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".

Eileen Chang in Wikipedia

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Reviews

Love in a Fallen City (New York Review Books Classics) by Eileen Chang

More emphasis on “fallen” than on “love”-- which is exactly what I like to read about! I loved getting a glimpse into the lives of the richly-depicted but utterly miserable characters in each of these stories. Chang’s settings are lush and evocative and she masterfully unravels devastating stories with a lethal poker face. Need to read more!

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alicatrasi | 14 other reviews | Nov 28, 2024 |

Lust, Caution by Ailing Zhang

A novella about revolution, patriotism, love, lust, materialism, sacrifice and betrayal during the Second Sino-Japanese war.

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vive_livre | 3 other reviews | Nov 9, 2024 |

Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang

Eileen Chang's stories are all beautiful in their own way.
Aloeswood Incense was perhaps my least favorite- but it's an important telling of life and times of some people. Jasmine Tea stayed with me for a long time with the feeling of how long and how much can one year for an ideal family. Sealed off is a little, almost dystopic fantasy in a little time point during what seems like a curfew. Red Rose, white rose is very uncomfortable to read as a woman, and yet so human. There is also something utterly memorable about the Golden Cangue- the character of Chi-chiao couldn't have been better described as having worn a 'golden cangue' and yet, her pain when Chi-tse leaves is hard to look away from for the reader.
Love in a fallen city is perhaps my favourite, that description of the lovers in despair in the fallen city and the victory of Liusu in the end of the story- like that of legendary beauties who felled cities.… (more)

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zasmine | 14 other reviews | Sep 26, 2024 |

Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang

I read Love in a Fallen City and the Golden Cangue for class and loved both of them. I read the rest later and enjoyed them as well. I preferred the stories that focused on women, as the male perspectives were often much more unpleasant, which I guess makes sense. Aloeswood Incense, Love in a Fallen City, and The Golden Cangue were definitely my favorites. All three were wonderful. I also enjoyed the story Sealed Off, although it was quite short. The other two, Jasmine Tea and Red Rose, White Rose weren't necessarily bad but both had protagonists that were rude, unpleasant, and unkind to women. That's not to say the stories were bad or that the characters were poorly written. I think the way Eileen Chang writes about people is very believable, but that doesn't make the perspectives of unlikable characters any more pleasant to read. Overall though, as a collection I think all the stories were good and the collection is cohesive. All the stories and all the relationships within them are sad in some way. The way in which Eileen Chang writes love and despair and heartbreak is really profound. All of her stories feel tangibly real and there's something beautiful about them. I also think that my experience reading two of them in class was really beneficial because I didn't know much about this period in Chinese history at the time and although that knowledge isn't necessary to understand these stories (they really feel timeless), I think it was helpful context.… (more)

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ZetaRiemann | 14 other reviews | Jul 24, 2024 |

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