Yang Jiang

(née Yang Jikang)

b. 1911

Writer

Yang began writing familiar essays and fiction while in graduate school at Qinghua University, where she met and married Qian Zhongshu. She studied overseas in Europe, and the couple returned to China in 1938. During the Japanese occupation of Shanghai she contributed comedies and dramas to the lively theatre boom there: among them were As You Desire (Chenxin ruyi, 1944), Cheat (Nongzhen chengjia, 1944) and Windswept Blossoms (Fengxu, 1945). In 1952 she joined the Chinese Academy of Science (later, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences). Her selected short fiction was collected in Inverted Images (Daoyingji, 1981), her familiar essays in Taking Tea (Jiangyin cha, 1987) and her critical essays in Spring Soil (Chunniji, 1979). Yang’s best-remembered fiction is her novel about the educated elite during the early years of Maoism, Cleansing (Xizao, 1988), while her best-remembered non-fiction work is her account of life during the Cultural Revolution, Six Chapters on a Cadre School (Ganxiao liuji, 1981). Her work is noted for its understatement and irony.

Her studies of picaresque fiction resulted in translations of Gils Blas, La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes and Don Quixote, which was presented as a state gift to Juan Carlos of Spain.

Further reading

Dooling, Amy (1994). ‘In Search of Laughter: Yang Jiang’s Feminist Comedy’. Modern Chinese Literature 8.12:41–68.

Goldblatt, Howard (1980). ‘The Cultural Revolution and Beyond: Yang Jiang’s Six Chapters from My Life Down Under’. Modern Chinese Literature 6.2:1–11.

Yang, Jiang (1989). Lost in the Crowd: A Cultural Revolution Memoir. Trans. Geremie Barmé. Melbourne: McPhee Gribble.

EDWARD GUNN