Hong Ying - Death in Shanghai (chinese)

In 1999 Hong Ying's novel K: The Art of Love was published in Taiwan, a fictionalised account of the true story of the Chinese intellectual who became Julian Bell's lover when he was in China in the 1930s. Known only as ‘K’ in the letters that he wrote home to his mother, the true identity of Julian Bell’s Chinese lover continues to spark controversy to this day. Already dubbed the Chinese Lady Chatterly’s Lover , Hong Ying’s imaginary account of the real-life love affair in the 1930s between Julian Bell, son of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf’s nephew, and Ling Shuhua, one of China’s most highly regarded short-story writers, was the focus of intense legal debate and became the subject of a scandalous court case on the Chinese mainland. The author was sued in Manchuria by Chen Xiaoying, the outraged daughter of Ling Shuhua, who died 12 years ago. The daughter has pronounced the book defamatory and is taking advantage of Chinese law, which stipulates that dead people can be protected from libel.

Denouncing the book as ‘unbearably pornographic’, Chen Xiaoying has brought a lawsuit against Hong Ying and the two Chinese publications that have carried extracts of the novel for causing ‘spiritual damage’. ‘It is very obscene,’ she told the UK ’s Observer at the start of the trial in June 2002. ‘There is no law in England to protect ancestors. But in China the dead cannot be slandered.’ This startling case highlights the fluid boundary between biography, artistic license and China ’s totalitarian legal system. If Hong Ying had lost, she would have faced a fine of 200,000 yuan ($24,000) the banning of the book for an unbelievable 100 years and the seizure of all her property in China. ‘If the court bans K from being published,’ Hong Ying announced at the time, ‘it would be a huge step backwards for modern Chinese writing. It would mean a return to a chaotic, conservative and totalitarian state.’

虹影，享誉世界文坛的著名作家、诗人。中国女性主义文学的代表之一。代表作有长篇小说《上海王》、《上海之死》、《饥饿的女儿》、《K》、《上海之 死》、诗集《鱼教会鱼歌唱》等。现居北京和伦敦二地。四部长篇被译成25种文字在欧美、澳大利亚和日本、韩国等国出版。曾获“英国华人诗歌一等奖”、中国 台湾《联合报》短篇小说奖新诗奖、纽约《特尔菲卡》杂志“中国最优秀短篇小说奖”，长篇自传体小说《饥饿的女儿》曾获中国台湾1997年《联合报》读书人 最佳书奖。被中国权威媒体评为2000年十大人气作家之一；2001年被评为《中国图书商报》十大女作家之首，称为“脂粉阵里的英雄”，被《南方周末》、 新浪网等评为2002年、2003年“中国最受争议的作家”。《上海王》为新浪网评2003年十大中外小说之一。《饥饿的女儿》为2004年台湾中学生书 评竞赛规定书籍。《K-英国情人》被英国《独立报》（INDEPENDEN）评为2002年Books of the Year十大好书之一。