Han Suyin

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Han Suyin ( Chinese 韩 素 音 Hán Sùyīn ), stage name of Rosalie Elisabeth Kuanghu Chow (Chinese Zhōu Guānghú周 光 湖; born September 12, 1917 in Xinyang , China ; † November 2, 2012 in Lausanne , Switzerland ), was a Chinese doctor and English-speaking author Non-fiction books about the People's Republic of China and novels set in East Asia as well as autobiographical works.

Life

Han Suyin was 1916 in Xinyang, province of Henan , Republic of China born as Zhou Guanghu. Her father was a Hakka tribe and a railroad engineer. Her mother came from Belgian Flanders. After her medical training in Beijing and Brussels , which was interrupted because of the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War , she worked as a midwife at the American Christian Hospital in Chengdu in the province of Sichuan . In 1938 she married the Kuomintang General Tang Paohuang, who was killed in the Chinese Civil War in 1947. The couple adopted a daughter named Yungmei or Mei.

From 1944 to 1948 Han studied medicine in London . During the early 1950s, Han was a doctor in Hong Kong , where the novel All Glory on Earth was written, her greatest literary success, which was filmed with Jennifer Jones and William Holden under the same name . She then worked in a tuberculosis clinic in Johor Bahru , British Malaya . After divorce from her second husband Leonard Comber, she married the Indian Colonel Vincent Ruthnaswamy, who died on January 3, 2003 in Bangalore . In the last years of her life she lived in Lausanne .

In 1966, Han Suyin wanted to travel from Chengdu to Lhasa ( Tibet Autonomous Region ). However, the flight was repeatedly postponed for a week until it was made clear to her that as a foreigner she was not allowed to travel to Tibet because the Cultural Revolution had just started. She was only allowed to fly to Lhasa in 1975. After this trip she wrote a book, published in London in 1977, about the lifting of serfdom in Tibet and the transformation of the Tibet Autonomous Region as part of the Communist People's Republic of China.

plant

Current cultural and political conflicts between East and West in Asia play a central role in Han Suyin's books. Among other things, she takes a committed position on the wars of liberation in Southeast Asia and on the domestic and foreign policy of modern China since the end of the imperial era against the background of the region's dependence on foreign colonial powers in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Works translated into German (selection)

with English original title and year of English language first publication

Novels

  • I hiked many years - Destination Chungking. 1943.
  • All the Glory on Earth - A Many-Splendored Thing. 1952, ISBN 3-87585-940-5 .
  • Where the mountains are young - The Mountain is Young. 1958, ISBN 3-7844-1689-6 .
  • A winter love - winter love. 1962.
  • Just cast a shadow - Cast But One Shadow. 1962.
  • The four faces . 1963.
  • Until the day wakes up - Till Morning Comes. 1982.
  • The Magic City - The Enchantress. 1985, ISBN 3-8135-0433-6 .

Autobiographical works

  • The big dream (also: Die eiserne Straße) - The Crippled Tree. 1965, ISBN 3-8135-0700-9 .
  • The Flower Reminder - A Mortal Flower. 1966.
  • Between two suns. Memories of a Decade - Birdless Summer. 1968, ISBN 3-548-23170-5 .
  • Only through the power of love - A Share of Loving. 1987, ISBN 3-442-09773-8 .
  • The wind is my dress - ... and the rain my drink. 1956, ISBN 3-8135-0688-6 .

Non-fiction

  • The China Mao Tse-tung - China in the year 2001. 1967.
  • The morning flood. Mao Tse-tung, a life for the revolution - The Morning Deluge: Mao Tse-Tung and the Chinese Revolution 1893–1953. 1972, ISBN 3-518-06734-6 .
  • The flight of the kite. Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese revolution - Wind in the tower: Mao Tsetung and the Chinese revolution 1949–1975. 1976, ISBN 3-442-11209-5 .
  • China's sun over Lhasa . The New Tibet under Beijing's Rule - Lhasa, The Open City: A Journey to Tibet. 1977, ISBN 3-502-17730-9 .
  • China 1890–1938. A historical photo report - China 1890–1938: From the Warlords to World War. 1989, ISBN 3-88230-102-3 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chinese-born writer Han Suyin dies in Switzerland
personal data
SURNAME Han, Suyin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 韩 素 音 (Chinese); Hán, Sùyīn; Kuanghu Chow, Rosalie Elisabeth (real name); Zhōu Guānghú; 周 光 湖; Zhou Guanghu
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese doctor and English-speaking author
DATE OF BIRTH September 12, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Xinyang
DATE OF DEATH November 2, 2012
Place of death Lausanne