40 Facts About Eileen Chang

Eileen Chang, known as Chang Ai-ling or Zhang Ailing, or by her pen name Liang Jing, was a Chinese-born American essayist, novelist, and screenwriter.

Eileen Chang gained literary prominence in Japanese-occupied Shanghai between 1943 and 1945.

Eileen Chang was born Zhang Ying in Shanghai, China on September 30,1920.

Eileen Chang was the first child of Zhang Zhiyi and Huang Suqiong.

Eileen Chang's maternal great-grandfather, Huang Yisheng, was a prominent naval commander.

Eileen Chang was raised by her paternal aunt Zhang Maoyuan.

In 1922, when Eileen Chang was two years old, the family relocated to Tianjin.

In 1927, after Eileen Chang's father promised to end his drug usage and extramarital affairs, Eileen Chang and her mother came back and settled in Shanghai.

Eileen Chang eventually ran away to live with her mother and they stayed with her mother for nearly two years, until she went to university.

Eileen Chang had obtained excellent English skills besides her native Chinese.

At an early age, under her mother's influence, Eileen Chang began painting, playing piano, and learning English.

In 1939, Eileen Chang was accepted to the University of London on a full scholarship, but was unable to attend due to World War II.

When Eileen Chang was one semester short of earning her degree in December 1941, Hong Kong fell to the Empire of Japan.

In 1943, Eileen Chang met her first husband Hu Lancheng when she was 23 and he was 37.

In 1956, while living in MacDowell Colony, New Hampshire, Eileen Chang met and became involved with the American screenwriter Ferdinand Reyher, a Philadelphia native nearly 30 years her senior.

On September 8,1995, Eileen Chang was found dead in her apartment on Rochester Avenue in Westwood, Los Angeles, by her landlord.

Eileen Chang displayed great literary talent and her writings were published in the school magazine.

Eileen Chang's writing was heavily influenced by the environment in which she lived.

Eileen Chang sought to probe and examine the psychology of her characters.

In 1943, Eileen Chang was introduced to the prominent editor Zhou Shoujuan and gave him a few pieces of her writing.

In 1945, Eileen Chang's reputation waned due to postwar cultural and political turmoil.

Eileen Chang left mainland China for Hong Kong in 1952, realizing her writing career in Shanghai was over.

Eileen Chang wrote Naked Earth at the direct request of the USIS and used a plot outline supplied by USIS agents.

Eileen Chang translated a variety of English works into Chinese, most notably The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving.

In 1955, Eileen Chang moved to America, struggling to become an English writer.

Eileen Chang's move from Hong Kong to the US marked an important turning point in her literary career.

Eileen Chang once tried to adapt a screenplay for Hollywood with Chinese elements, but was unsuccessful because the agent thought the role had too much content and psychological changes.

Eileen Chang became an American citizen in 1960 and headed to Taiwan for more opportunities, returning to the United States in 1962.

In 1962, when she resided in San Francisco, Eileen Chang started writing the English novel The Young Marshal based on the love story between the Chinese general Zhang Xueliang and his wife, Zhao Yidi, with an aim to break into the American literary world.

In 1966, Eileen Chang had a writing residency at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

In 1967, Eileen Chang held a short-term job at Radcliffe College.

In 1969, upon the invitation of Shih-Hsiang Chen, a professor of Oriental Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, Eileen Chang became a senior researcher at the Center for Chinese Studies of Berkeley.

In 1971, the year Chen died, Eileen Chang left her post at Berkeley.

In 1990, Eileen Chang began writing an essay "Table of Love and Hate", a reflection of her thoughts during her school days.

Eileen Chang sought to recount the seemingly irrelevant details and experiences of daily life of ordinary men and women in periods of social change and violence.

Eileen Chang was known for her view of modern history, displaying colours, lines, and moods in her writing and juxtaposition of historical reality with the domain of domesticity.

The name Eileen Chang became synonymous with the glories of a bygone era.

Eileen Chang has been listed as one of the four women literary geniuses in Shanghai during the Republic of China era, alongside Su Qing, Guan Lu, and Pan Liudai.

Eileen Chang has been listed as one of the four women literary geniuses during the Republic of China era, along with Lu Bicheng, Xiao Hong and Shi Pingmei.

Dominic Cheung, a poet and professor of East Asian languages at the University of Southern California, said that had it not been for the Chinese civil war, Eileen Chang would have been a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.