Han Suyin wrote in English and French on modern China, set her novels in East and Southeast Asia, and published autobiographical memoirs which covered the span of modern China.
15 Facts About Han Suyin
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2.
Han Suyin lived in Lausanne, Switzerland, for many years until her death.
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Han Suyin's father was a Belgian-educated Chinese engineer, Chou Wei, of Hakka heritage, while her mother, Marguerite Denis, was Belgian.
4.
Han Suyin began work as a typist at Peking Union Medical College in 1931, not yet 15 years old.
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Han Suyin worked as a midwife in an American Christian mission hospital in Chengdu, Sichuan.
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Han Suyin graduated with MBBS with Honours in 1948 and in 1949 went to Hong Kong to practice medicine at the Queen Mary Hospital.
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Han Suyin portrayed their relationship in the bestselling novel A Many-Splendoured Thing and the factual basis of their relationship is documented in her autobiography My House Has Two Doors.
8.
In 1955, Han contributed efforts to the establishment of Nanyang University in Singapore.
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Han Suyin was a rather pro-Left intellectual and a doctor.
10.
In 1960, Han Suyin married Vincent Ratnaswamy, an Indian colonel, and lived for a time in Bangalore, India.
11.
Han Suyin was one of the first foreign nationals to visit Red China, including through the years of the Cultural Revolution.
12.
Glaskin's A Many-Splendoured Woman: A Memoir of Han Suyin, published in 1995.
13.
Han Suyin funded the Chinese Writers Association to create the "National Rainbow Award for Best Literary Translation" to help develop literature translation in China.
14.
Han Suyin has been influential in Asian American literature, as her books were published in English and contained depictions of Asians that were radically different from the portrayals found in both Anglo-American and Asian-American authors.
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Han Suyin explores the struggle for liberation in Southeast Asia and the internal and foreign policies of modern China since the end of the imperial regime.