60 Facts About Ding Ling

Ding Ling, formerly romanized as Ting Ling, was the pen name of Jiang Bingzhi, known as Bin Zhi, one of the most celebrated Chinese women authors of the 20th century.

Ding Ling is known for her feminist and socialist realist literature.

Ding Ling later became a leader in the literary community in the Communist base of Yan'an, and held high literature and culture positions in the early government of the People's Republic of China.

Ding Ling was awarded the Soviet Union's Stalin second prize for Literature in 1951 for her socialist-realist work The Sun Shines Over Sanggan River.

Ding Ling was rehabilitated only in 1979 and a 1984 Communist Party resolution formally affirmed that the initial 1940 investigation concluding that she had remained loyal while in KMT custody was correct.

Ding Ling was born as Jiang Bingzhi into a gentry family in Linli, Hunan province.

Ding Ling's father, Jiang Baoqian, was a scholar in the late Qing Dynasty and died when Ding Ling was 3 years old.

Ding Ling's mother, Yu Manzhen, studied at the Hunan Provincial No 1 Normal School for Girls where she was a classmate of Xiang Jingyu, an early pioneer in Chinese feminism.

Ding Ling later became an elementary school educator who raised her children as a single mother.

Ding Ling's mother was Ding's role model, and she would later write an unfinished novel, titled Mother, describing her mother's experiences.

Ding Ling often told Ding stories of martyrs, particularly Qiu Jin.

Ding Ling had her formative education in progressive girls' schools, first in Hunan and later in Shanghai.

In 1919, Ding Ling graduated from primary school and was admitted to the preparatory course at the Hunan Second Normal School for Girls in Taoyuan County, where she came in contact with the May 4th student movement.

In 1920, she was transferred to Changsha Zhounan Girls High School, but the school became very conservative and Ding Ling dropped out after one year of study.

In 1921, Ding Ling transferred to Yueyun Middle School and was a classmate with Yang Kaihui, Mao Zedong's second wife.

Ding Ling went to Beijing alone in the summer to study at Peking University, but to no avail.

When Ding Ling returned to her hometown during summer vacation, Hu Yepin rushed to Hunan.

In February 1928, Ding Ling published Miss Sophia's Diary in the Fiction Monthly.

Around this time Ding Ling met the Communist Party member, writer, and activist Feng Xuefeng, who unlike Hu Yepin was active in politics.

Ding Ling gave me many things; I did not reject them.

Xiang's execution deeply affected Ding Ling and increased her political leanings toward Communism.

In early 1929, Ding Ling started editing and publishing the "Renjian " magazine, but both magazines ceased publication soon afterward.

In February 1930, Hu Yepin went to Jinan to teach at the Shandong Provincial Senior High School, and Ding Ling joined him soon after.

In March 1931, Ding Ling placed her son in the care of her mother and returned to Hunan, accompanied by Shen Congwen.

In grief, Ding Ling sent her son who was less than 100 days old back to Hunan to be taken care of by her mother.

The Communist Party invited Ding Ling to become the editor-in-chief of the Beidou, a new left-wing magazine, and she accepted.

Ding Ling wrote love letters to Feng Xuefeng, who was married.

Ding Ling introduced Ding to Feng Da, who was working as the secretary to Agnes Smedley.

In March 1932, Ding Ling joined the Chinese Communist Party and succeeded Qian Xingcun as the party secretary of the League of Left-Wing Writers.

On 14 May 1933, Ding Ling was kidnapped from her residence in the Shanghai international settlement along with Pan Zinian, a leftist intellectual who was visiting Ding Ling.

In September 1933, under persuasion, Ding Ling wrote the following note:.

Ding Ling thought that the note would help her regain her freedom but to no avail.

Under house arrest by the KMT, Ding Ling lived with her then-husband Feng Da, who was suspected of betraying her to the KMT.

In October 1934, Ding Ling gave birth to her daughter Jiang Zuhui with Feng Da, which took her surname instead of Feng's.

In October 1934, Ding Ling gave birth to a child whose father was Feng.

Ding Ling described her time in the KMT's captivity in her 1983 memoir The World of Demons and Monsters.

In July 1936, arranged by Feng Xuefeng, Ding Ling fled Nanjing on train and came to Shanghai.

Ding Ling became one of the most influential figures in Yan'an cultural circles.

On 12 August 1937, the group was officially titled the Northwest Front Service Corps and Ding Ling served as its director.

In 1938, Ding Ling began studying at the Yan'an Marxism-Leninism Institute, which was a training center for cadre.

Speculation began in 1940 that Ding Ling had collaborated with the KMT while being held captive.

Ding Ling volunteered to be investigated by the Communist Party and Ren Bishi was designated as the investigator.

In May 1941, Ding Ling served as the editor-in-chief of the literary column of Liberation Daily, an organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

At that time, Ding Ling was the editor of the literature and art column of "Liberation Daily".

In 1942, Ding Ling wrote the essay Commemorating Xiao Hong in Wind and Rain, in which she grieved for the premature death of Xiao Hong, the execution by the KMT of early Communist Party leader Qu Qiubai, and the political suspicion against her friends Feng Xuefeng and Hu Feng.

In February 1942, Ding Ling married Chen Ming, the president of Yan'an Fenghuo Opera Club.

Ding Ling was 13 years older than Chen Ming, and the relationship was the source of much discussion.

Ding Ling was assigned to the first sector of the Central Party School for cadre investigation and ideological reform.

Mao contrasted Ding Ling's work with Wang Shiwei's stating that Ding Ling was a comrade while Wang was a Trotskyist.

Unlike the fictionalized village depicted in The Sun Shines Over Sanggan River which enjoys its liberation, the village on which Ding Ling based her novel was captured by the Nationalists shortly after Ding Ling's land reform work team left.

In 1949 and 1950, Ding Ling criticized the base tastes of much popular literature, but recognized that revolutionary literature was not yet well-developed.

In 1954, Ding Ling was awarded the second prize of the Stalin Prize for Literature for "The Sun Shines on the Sanggan River", and in 1954, Ding Ling was elected to the PRC's first National People's Congress.

Ding Ling was criticized during the Sufan Movement for allegedly forming an anti-party clique with Chen Qixia.

Zhou alleged that Ding Ling was unchaste and not loyal to the Communist Party.

In September 1957, Mao denounced Ding Ling and described her as a bourgeois intellectual who should be expelled from the party.

On January 26,1958, Ding Ling was denounced in a special edition of "Re-Criticism" published by the government "Literature and Art Newspaper".

Ding Ling wrote a letter of surrender in Nanjing and betrayed the proletariat and the Communist Party to Chiang Kai-shek.

Ding Ling concealed it and deceived the trust of the party.

Ding Ling was then sent to a remote village near Changzhi where she lived for four years.

Ding Ling's body was instead covered with a red flag gifted by friends from the Great Northern Wasteland, embroidered with the words "Ding Ling is immortal".