Eileen Chang's Life and Legacy
After Reyher died, Chang lived a life of relative solitude. In 1972, she moved to Los Angeles, taking up residence in Hollywood. Up until she died, Chang was in continued frequent correspondence with fellow author C.T. Hsia, writing about her life and work; these letters are now preserved in USC’s digital library. In the later years of her life, she became increasingly reclusive and moved to many different addresses in LA for reasons that are unclear. She was found dead in her last apartment in September of 1995, after repeated attempts to contact her. As per her last will and testament, her ashes were scattered by her landlord, Stone Lin, and others into the Pacific Ocean, and all her belongings were given to Stephen and Mae Soong, her friends in Hong Kong.
Dominic Cheung (張錯) worked as a Chinese and Comparative Literature professor at USC. Even though he was friends with Stone Lin for many years and he had done studies and teachings on Eileen’s literature, he never wanted to intrude on her reclusive lifestyle while she was alive. After her death, Lin called upon Cheung's help for carrying out the sea burial, dealing with the press and shipping out her remains to Hong Kong. Knowing how important Eileen’s manuscripts were, Cheung contacted Stephen and Mae Soong (the recipiants of her remians) after everything was settled and asked them if they were willing to give out some English materials to USC. After a few attempts, Cheung managed to convince Soong to donate some materials and set up this special collection at USC Doheny Library.
