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 v ...
-
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 go ...
, Ye and her family were condemned as having "bad blood" and persecuted by the
Communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...
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, correc ...
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, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts ...
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 charter ...
. She took a degree in
English Literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines E ...
, 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 tota ...
in 1987. She published her
autobiography
An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life.
It is a form of biography.
Definition
The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English p ...
, 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
3 is a number, numeral, and glyph.
3, three, or III may also refer to:
* AD 3, the third year of the AD era
* 3 BC, the third year before the AD era
* March, the third month
Books
* ''Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 ...
'', illustrated by Harvey Chan, 1997
* ''
Weighing The Elephant
In science and engineering, the weight of an object is the force acting on the object due to gravity.
Some standard textbooks define weight as a vector quantity, the gravitational force acting on the object. Others define weight as a scalar ...
'', illustrated by Suzanne Langlois, 1998
* ''
Share The Sky'', illustrated by Suzanne Langlois, 1999
* ''
White Lily
''Lilium candidum'', the Madonna lily or white lily, is a plant in the true lily family. It is native to the Balkans and Middle East, and naturalized in other parts of Europe, including France, Italy, and Ukraine, and in North Africa, the Canary ...
'', a chapter book, 2000
* ''
Throwaway Daughter
Throwaway may refer to:
* Disposable, single use
* "Throwaway", an episode of “The Shield”
* "Throwaway", a song by Mick Jagger from the album "Primitive Cool"
* Throwaway, the winner of the Ascot Gold Cup in 1904, as featured in James Joyce ...
'', a Young Adult novel, 2003
* ''
My Name is Number Four'', Young Adult non-fiction, 2007
* ''
Mountain Girl, River Girl
A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...
'', 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 ...
*
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 go ...
*
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