Love for All Seasons

The cover of Love for All Seasons [szb.dlxww.com]

Chiang, who had a hiatus from the literary world spanning around three decades, makes a triumphant return by planning to telling the fictional and non-fictional stories of 38 different women in her books that provide a unique snapshot of China during its republican era.

Published by the Beijing-based New Star Press, Love for All Seasons is Chiang's first step towards her newly envisioned ambition as a writer.

"The book presents the stories of the first 14 women, including a proprietor of a noodle restaurant who flees to Taiwan, a Shanghai dancer who marries an American and becomes a businesswoman in the US, a daughter of a military officer who lives a glorious life, and a mainland mistress who moves to Taiwan with her lover to escape his wife," said the book's editor, Mao Jing.

"Getting caught up in turbulent times, these women live their different lives with the irony of fate," added Mao.

The book's heroines each have different stories, however they are weaved together through kinship as mother and daughter, friends or acquaintances.

Thirty years of Chiang's life experiences infused in the book provide readers with insight into how times have changed.

The preface to the book, written by famous female writer Wang Anyi, provides a glowing, if not lengthy, recommendation at 4,000 characters.

"Compared to Eileen Chang, who wrote mainly about urban women of the 1920s-1930s, and Wang, who focuses on women who stayed in Shanghai after 1949, Chiang tells stories of women who moved away from their hometowns," said Mao.

Rise of a Literary Star

Mao notes that Chiang, much like the women she writes about in Love for All Seasons, has led an interesting life.  

An old photo of Chiang Hsiao-yun [sohu.com]

Born in 1954 in Taipei, Chiang's talent for writing was discovered completely by chance.

During her first year of studies at National Taiwan Normal University, Chiang's friend entered her unfinished work in a writing competition.

Unexpectedly, judge and writer Chu Hsi-ning (1927-1998) thought highly of the work, saying Chiang's writing style was similar to that of Eileen Chang (1920-1995), one of the most influential modern Chinese writers noted for her novels that dealt with tension between men and women in love.

Chu later found Chiang through her friend and asked her to complete the novel. Chiang worked on it that very night, which became her first book Sui Yuan (1975), literally "let it be" in English.

Literary critic Hsia Chih-tsing, who also hailed Chiang as another Eileen Chang, wrote the preface for the book.

Chiang subsequently embarked on her literary career. In her early 20s, she won Taiwan's prestigious Unitas Literary Award for three consecutive years, earning critical acclaim.

In 1980, Chiang pursued her doctorate studies in education at the University of California, Los Angeles. She later switched her profession from writing to the high-tech industry.

Not until 2011 did she return to the literary arena with her novel Tao Hua Jing, which tells the story of an elderly Taiwanese man who returns to his birthplace on the Chinese mainland.

Chiang's return created quite a stir in the Taiwanese literary circle. "She is my idol," said Chang Ta-ch'un, a notable Taiwanese author and literary critic.

Taiwanese media also hailed Chiang as the biggest gain in the literary world as well as an extraordinary novelist skilled in writing fiction.

(Source: Qianjiang Evening News/Translated and edited by womenofchina.cn)