Eileen Chang (1920-1995) was born into an aristocratic family in Shanghai. Chang studied literature at the University of Hong Kong, but the Japanese attack on the city in 1941 forced her to return to occupied Shanghai, where she was able to publish the stories and essays (collected in two volumes, Romances, 1944, and Written on Water, 1945) that soon made her a literary star. The rise of Communist influence made it increasingly difficult for Chang to continue living in Shanghai; she moved to Hong Kong in 1952, then emigrated to the United States three years later. In spite of the tremendous revival of interest in her work that began in Taiwan and Hong Kong in the 1970s, and that later spread to mainland China, Chang became ever more reclusive as she grew older. Eileen Chang was found dead in her Los Angeles apartment in September 1995.
Karen S. Kingsbury has lived in Chinese-speaking cities for nearly two decades. She taught English in Chonquing on the Whitman-in-China program, studied Chinese in Taipei and, for fourteen years, taught English language and literature at Tunghai University in Taichung. Her Columbia University doctoral dissertation was on Eileen Chang, and she has published previous translations of Chang's essays and fiction in Renditions and in The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature. She lives in Seattle.
张爱玲,中国现代作家,本名张瑛,出生在上海公共租界西区的麦根路313号的一幢建于清末的仿西式豪宅中。张爱玲的家世显赫,祖父张佩纶是清末名臣,祖母李菊耦是朝廷重臣李鸿章的长女。张爱玲一生创作大量文学作品。类型包括小说、散文、电影剧本以及文学论著,她的书信也被人们作为著作的一部分加以研究。1944年张爱玲结识作家胡兰成与之交往。1973年,张爱玲定居洛杉矶,1995年9月8日,张爱玲的房东发现她逝世于加州韦斯特伍德市罗彻斯特大道的公寓,终年75岁,死因为动脉硬化心血管病。