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• 1 2020-10-02T14:45:33-07:00 Eileen Chang's Life and Legacy & Contemporary Art 44 LA Team: Yiwei, Helena and Jenny structured_gallery 2020-11-13T11:00:39-08:00 Eileen Chang (張愛玲/Ailing Zhang, 1920-1995), is known as one of the most influential Chinese writers during the twentieth century. Eileen was born in Shanghai to an aristocratic family. In 1939, she began to study literature at the University of Hong Kong, then returned to Shanghai with the advent of World War II. In 1943, she published Love after Love (第一炉香), which made Chang a great success in literature and propelled her to stardom. She then published several famous novels such Love In A Fallen City (倾城之恋) and Blockade (封锁). In 1944, Chang married a Japanese sympathizer named Hu Lancheng, then divorced him in 1947 due to his infidelity. In 1952, she returned to Hong Kong, then fled to the United States three years later as the Cultural Revolution began. There, Chang married for the second time to the American scriptwriter Ferdinand Reyher, who passed away in 1967. During this period, she continued to write novels, worked on film scripts for Hong Kong films, and translated The Sing-Song Girls of Shanghai (海上花系列) while taking up positions at various American universities.
  
  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 (see a map of some of these addresses). 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.

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