介绍:
Yang Jiang: a Century of Experience
She was a diligent writer of talent who had continued to produce new works despite her age. She never stopped writing until her death. The well-known Chinese writer, literary translator and foreign literature researcher Yang Jiang died at the age of 105.
Yang studied at Soochow University and then at Tsinghua University in the 1930s. She was married to Qian Zhongshu, a household name in China for his best-selling book Fortress Besieged, which depicts the life of Chinese intellectuals in the 1930s.
After studying in Britain and France with Qian, Yang returned China and became a foreign language professor at Tsinghua University in 1938. Fluent in English, French and Spanish, Yang was the first Chinese to translate Don Quixote from the Spanish original, which is widely considered the best Chinese version.
Yang wrote numerous plays, novels and essays and was known for her plain, subtle and elegant writing style, including We Three, an essay collection recalling the sweet family time with her husband and their only child, who died in 1997, one year before her father’s death.
Yang had never forgotten about the duty as an intellectual. She persisted in translating and writing and never stopped thinking. She was equally admired for her indifference to fame and wealth, and her generous nature in giving back to society.
In 2001, Yang donated all the money from the books of her husband and herself to set up a scholarship at Tsinghua University.
“Qian Zhongshu and I had this idea long ago. We wanted to be able to support those poor but determined students. The scholarship is named ‘Loving Reading’ which expresses our expectations: whatever adverse environment you are in, don’t give up your dream and academic pursuit,” said Yang.
