Diana Chang (; 1924 – February 19, 2009) was a

Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Han Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans along with their ancestors trace lineage from ...

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living writing novels and other fiction, while others aspire to ...

and

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

. She is best known for her novel ''The Frontiers of Love'', one of the earliest novels by an

Asian American Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...

woman. She is considered to be the first

American-born Chinese American-born Chinese () (sometimes abbreviated as ABC) is a term widely used to refer to Chinese people that were born in the United States and received U.S. citizenship due to birthright citizenship in the United States. Contested usage In ...

to publish a novel in the United States.

Early life

Chang was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

to a Chinese father, Kuang Chi Chang, and Eurasian mother, Eva Mary Lee Wah Chang, but spent her youngest years in China, including

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu province of the People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and the second largest city in the East China region. T ...

, and

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

. She attended high school in New York, and graduated cum laude from

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

in 1949 where she majored in English, focusing on British and American Poets. While an undergraduate at Barnard, Chang had 3 of her poems published by Poetry Magazine, including her work "At The Window."

Career

After graduation, Chang worked as a book editor at three reputable publishing houses: Avon Books, Bobbs-Merrill, A. A. Wyn). She also worked as the editor for the PEN-sponsored journal ''American Pen'' and as a creative writing teacher at Barnard College.

Literary work

Chang's best known work is ''The Frontiers of Love''. Her work has more recently been read in terms of postmodernity and

hybridity Hybridity, in its most basic sense, refers to mixture. The term originates from biology and was subsequently employed in linguistics and in racial theory in the nineteenth century. Young, Robert. ''Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and R ...

. Although critical work on Chang has increased since the republication of ''Frontiers'', critics have preferred to examine her Asian-themed works; her "white" novels are only recently getting attention. While at Barnard College, Chang published her poem, ''Mood'' in Modern Poetry Association's ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

''.

Personal life

Chang lived in Water Mill, NY with her husband David Hermann. She died on February 19, 2009.

Published works

Novels

*''The Frontiers of Love'', (1956, reissued 1974) *''A Woman of Thirty'' (1959) *''A Passion for Life'' (1961) *''The Only Game in Town'' (1963) *''Eye to Eye'' (1974) *''A Perfect Love'' (1978)

Poetry

*'' Saying Yes'' (Unknown) *''The Horizon is Definitely Speaking'' (1982) *''What Matisse is After'' (1984) *''Earth Water Light'' (1991)

Awards

Fulbright The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

John Hay Whitney John Hay Whitney (August 17, 1904 – February 8, 1982) was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the ''New York Herald Tribune'', and president of the Museum of Modern Art. He was a member of the Whitney family. Early life Whit ...

Opportunity Fellowship *Mademoiselle Magazine Woman-of-the-Year

References

*Baringer, Sandra. "'The Hybrids and the Cosmopolitans': Race, Gender, and Masochism in Diana Chang's ''The Frontiers of Love''" pp. 107–21 IN: Brennan, Jonathan (ed. and introd.); ''Mixed Race Literature''. Stanford, CA: Stanford UP; 2002. *Fink, Thomas; "Chang's 'Plunging into View'" ''Explicator'', 1997 Spring; 55 (3): 175–77. *Grice, Helena. "Diana Chang" pp. 30–35 IN: Madsen, Deborah L. (ed. and introd.); ''Asian American Writers''. Detroit, MI: Gale; 2005. *Grice, Helena. "Face-ing/De-Face-ing Racism: Physiognomy as Ethnic Marker in Early Eurasian/Amerasian Women's Texts" pp. 255–70 IN: Lee, Josephine (ed.); Lim, Imogene L. (ed.); Matsukawa, Yuko (ed.); ''Re/Collecting Early Asian America: Essays in Cultural History''. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP; 2002. *Ling, Amy; "Writer in the Hyphenated Condition: Diana Chang" '' MELUS'', 1980 Winter; 7 (4): 69–83. *Spaulding, Carol Vivian; ''Blue-Eyed Asians: Eurasianism in the Work of Edith Eaton/Sui Sin Far, Winnifred Eaton/Onoto Watanna, and Diana Chang.'' Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 1997 Jan; 57 (7): 3024–25. U of Iowa, 1996. *Wu, Wei-hsiung Kitty; ''Cultural Ideology and Aesthetic Choices: A Study of Three Works by Chinese-American Women—Diana Chang, Bette Bao Lord, and Maxine H. Kingston. Dissertation Abstracts International, 1990 June; 50 (12): 3956A. {{DEFAULTSORT:Chang, Diana 20th-century American novelists American writers of Chinese descent American women writers of Chinese descent 1934 births 2009 deaths Barnard College alumni American novelists of Chinese descent American women poets American women novelists 20th-century American women writers 20th-century American poets 21st-century American women