Ding Ling (Ting Ling) [real name Jiang Bingzhi] 1904-1986

Born in Linli, Hunan province. She was strongly influenced in her teenage years by her mother's anti-traditionalist views and the ideals of the May Fourth Movement. She began her career as a writer in the late 1920's. In 1932 she joined the Communist Party and went to Yan'an in the early 1940's. However, her attempts to point out less than ideal practices there drew criticism during the Rectification Campaign of 1942. She was denounced as a rightist in 1957 and was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. Her works were then banned. In 1978 she was rehabilitated, and in January 1979 her works were published again.
Works:

  • Shafei nüshi de riji (Miss Sophie's Diary) 1927
  • Shui (Water) 1933
  • Muqin (Mother) 1933
  • Taiyang zhaozai sangganhe shang (The Sun Shines Over The Sanggan River)
       1948

    Works available in English:

  • I Myself Am a Woman: Selected Writings of Ding Ling (ed. by Tani E. Barlow with Gary J. Bjorge).
       Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.
  • Miss Sophie's Diary and Other Stories (W.J.F. Jenner). Beijing: Chinese
       Literature, 1985.
  • The Sun Shines over the Sanggan River (Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang).
       Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1954.

    Studies and Biographies:

  • Charles J. Alber, Embracing the Lie: Ding Ling and the Politics of Literature in the People's Republic of China. Westport, Conn.: Praeger Publishers, 2004.
  • Kathleen B. Semergieff, The changing roles of women in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1967: with a case study of Ting Ling. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI, 1985.
  • Yi-tsi Mei Feuerwerker, Ding Ling's fiction: ideology and narrative in modern Chinese literature. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982.
  • Gary John Bjorge, Ting Ling's early years: her life and literature through 1942. S.I.: S.n., 1977.          close