Ting-Xing Ye (born 1952) is a
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
-
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
author of young adult novels, as well as ''
Leaf In A Bitter Wind'', a best-selling autobiographical account of her life in Maoist China.
Biography
Ye was born in
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 flowin ...
,
China, in 1952, the fourth of five children. Her parents were a factory owner and his wife. Ye's parents died when she was a small child, leaving Ye and her four siblings in the care of her Great-Aunt. During the
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
, Ye and her family were condemned as having "bad blood" and persecuted by the
Communist regime, because their father had been a boss in a factory. At sixteen, like millions of other young Chinese men and women, Ye was exiled to a
prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, corre ...
farm to "learn from the peasants" and be "reformed" by hard labor. On the farm, Ye was persecuted and suffered
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. definitions of tortur ...
at the hands of her leaders.
Ye spent six years laboring on the prison farm, before being admitted to
Beijing University
Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education.
Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal chart ...
. She took a degree in
English Literature, then began a seven-year career as English interpreter for the national government in
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 flowin ...
. During that time she met her future husband, Canadian writer and educator
William E. Bell who taught English at the Foreign Affairs College in
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 ...
. Ye came to
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
in 1987. She published her
autobiography, detailing her life in Mao's China, in 1997. She published her first picture book in 1998. Ye also writes Young Adult fiction and non-fiction.
Selected works
* ''
Leaf In A Bitter Wind'', autobiographical memoir, 1997
* ''
Three Monks, No Water'', illustrated by Harvey Chan, 1997
* ''
Weighing The Elephant'', illustrated by Suzanne Langlois, 1998
* ''
Share The Sky'', illustrated by Suzanne Langlois, 1999
* ''
White Lily'', a chapter book, 2000
* ''
Throwaway Daughter'', a Young Adult novel, 2003
* ''
My Name is Number Four'', Young Adult non-fiction, 2007
* ''
Mountain Girl, River Girl'', a Young Adult novel, 2008
See also
*
Scar literature
Scar literature or literature of the wounded () is a genre of Chinese literature which emerged in the late 1970s during the "Boluan Fanzheng" period, soon after the death of Mao Zedong, portraying the sufferings of cadres and intellectuals du ...
*
Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...
*
Jung Chang
Jung Chang (, , born 25 March 1952) is a Chinese-British writer now living in London, best known for her family autobiography ''Wild Swans'', selling over 10 million copies worldwide but banned in the People's Republic of China.
Her 832-page ...
External links
* (Ting-Xing Ye and William Bell)
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ye, Ting-Xing
1952 births
Living people
People from Orillia
Chinese women writers
Canadian children's writers
Writers from Shanghai
Canadian writers of Asian descent
Canadian women children's writers