05-29-2016, 11:21 AM
Yang Jiang (simplified Chinese: 杨绛; traditional Chinese: 楊絳; pinyin: Yáng Jiàng; 17 July 1911 – 25 May 2016), born Yang Jikang (simplified Chinese: 杨季康; traditional Chinese: 楊季康; pinyin: Yáng Jìkāng), was a Chinese playwright, author and translator. She wrote several successful comedies, and was the first Chinese person to produce a complete Chinese version of Miguel de Cervantes Spanish novel, Don Quixote.[1]
Born in Beijing,[2] she grew up in the south of China. After graduating from Soochow University in 1932, Yang Jiang enrolled in the graduate school of Tsinghua University where she met her husband Qian Zhongshu. During 1935–1938, they went abroad to England for further study at Oxford University and the University of London. At that time, she gave birth to their daughter Qian Yuan (錢瑗). They later studied at Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris, France.[2]
They returned to China in 1938.[2] Living in Shanghai, she wrote plays in the "anti-romantic" style: As You Wish (1944), Taking True for False (1945) and Quilts in the Wind (1947). After 1949, she taught at the Tsinghua University and made a scholarly study of western literature at Peking University and the Academy of Science. She published this work in 1979 in a compendium: Spring Mud. Both Yang and Qian went into academics and made important contributions to the development of Chinese literary culture.[3]
She also translated European works into Chinese: Lazarillo de Tormes (1951), Gil Blas (1956) and Don Quixote (1978).[4] Her Chinese translation of Don Quixote is, as of 2016, still considered the definitive version.[5] She was also awarded the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise for this by King Juan Carlos in October 1986.[6] Her sister Yang Bi (楊必) (1922–1968) was also a translator.
Her experience in a "training school" in Henan from 1969 to 1972, where she was "sent down" with her husband during the Cultural Revolution, inspired her to write Six Chapters from My Life 'Downunder' (1981).[7] This is the book that made her name as a writer.[8][9] In connection with this memoir, she also wrote Soon to Have Tea (將飲茶), which was published in 1983.[10]
In 1988, she published her only novel Baptism (洗澡), which was always connected with Fortress Besieged (圍城), a masterpiece of her husband.[11] Her 2003 memoir We Three (我們仨), recalled memories of her husband and her daughter Qian Yuan, who died of cancer one year before her father's death in 1998. At the age of 96, she published Reaching the Brink of Life (走到人生邊上), a philosophic work whose title in Chinese clearly alludes to her late husband's collection of essays Marginalia to Life (寫在人生邊上).[2]
She turned 100 in July 2011.[12] On 25 May 2016, Yang died at the age of 104 at Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing.[5]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Jiang#cite_note-1][/url]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Jiang
Born in Beijing,[2] she grew up in the south of China. After graduating from Soochow University in 1932, Yang Jiang enrolled in the graduate school of Tsinghua University where she met her husband Qian Zhongshu. During 1935–1938, they went abroad to England for further study at Oxford University and the University of London. At that time, she gave birth to their daughter Qian Yuan (錢瑗). They later studied at Pantheon-Sorbonne University in Paris, France.[2]
They returned to China in 1938.[2] Living in Shanghai, she wrote plays in the "anti-romantic" style: As You Wish (1944), Taking True for False (1945) and Quilts in the Wind (1947). After 1949, she taught at the Tsinghua University and made a scholarly study of western literature at Peking University and the Academy of Science. She published this work in 1979 in a compendium: Spring Mud. Both Yang and Qian went into academics and made important contributions to the development of Chinese literary culture.[3]
She also translated European works into Chinese: Lazarillo de Tormes (1951), Gil Blas (1956) and Don Quixote (1978).[4] Her Chinese translation of Don Quixote is, as of 2016, still considered the definitive version.[5] She was also awarded the Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise for this by King Juan Carlos in October 1986.[6] Her sister Yang Bi (楊必) (1922–1968) was also a translator.
Her experience in a "training school" in Henan from 1969 to 1972, where she was "sent down" with her husband during the Cultural Revolution, inspired her to write Six Chapters from My Life 'Downunder' (1981).[7] This is the book that made her name as a writer.[8][9] In connection with this memoir, she also wrote Soon to Have Tea (將飲茶), which was published in 1983.[10]
In 1988, she published her only novel Baptism (洗澡), which was always connected with Fortress Besieged (圍城), a masterpiece of her husband.[11] Her 2003 memoir We Three (我們仨), recalled memories of her husband and her daughter Qian Yuan, who died of cancer one year before her father's death in 1998. At the age of 96, she published Reaching the Brink of Life (走到人生邊上), a philosophic work whose title in Chinese clearly alludes to her late husband's collection of essays Marginalia to Life (寫在人生邊上).[2]
She turned 100 in July 2011.[12] On 25 May 2016, Yang died at the age of 104 at Peking Union Medical College Hospital in Beijing.[5]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Jiang#cite_note-1][/url]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yang_Jiang
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.