Capturing Chinese — Zhang Ailing

We are going back to the famous author, Zhāng Ailíng (张爱玲), this week and introducing her most famous piece of literature called "Love in a Fallen City" (倾城之恋 Qīngchéng Zhī Liàn).  Zhang Ailing is popularly known in the West as Eileen Chang since she spent so much of her life living in America.   She left China in the 1955 for America at age 35 and died in 1995 in LA. Love in a Fallen City was first published in 1944  in her first collection of short stories. A Hong Kong film was made of the story in 1984 by Anne Hui starring Chow Yun-Fat and an English translation was published in 2006.  The English translation is available on Amazon for those interested. Love in a Fallen City (New York Review Books Classics) A good review of the movie can be found here: Love in a Fallen City (the movie) The fallen city is Hong Kong and the war is the Japanese invasion of China.  The story's heroine is a divorced woman who then falls in love with a Malayan businessman based in Hong Kong.  The two find love in the war torn city.  Please enjoy. Zhang Ailing (Eileen Chang) - Love in a Fallen City

In this week's reading sample, we are changing gears a little bit. While our first three selections were essays by Zhu Ziqing, this week we are introducing our first piece of fiction. The piece is called "Sealed Off" and was written by Zhāng Ailíng. Zhāng Ailíng is one of the most famous authors in modern Chinese literature and is most famous for her story, Love in a Fallen City . She is more frequently referred to in English as Eileen Chang since she spent much of her life living in the US. She lived from September 30, 1920 to September 8, 1995. Learning Chinese through real stories is one of the best ways to improve your reading skills in Chinese so enjoy! 封锁 Fēngsuǒ Sealed Off Written by 张爱玲 Zhāng Ailíng Eileen Chang