Ding Ling

Ding Ling (Chinese丁玲, Pinyin Ding Ling; actually Jiǎng Bingzhi (蒋 冰 之), born October 12, 1904 in Linli, Hunan Province; † March 4, 1986 in Beijing) was a Chinese writer and one of the most important representatives of the literature of the Chinese Republic ( 1911-1949 ).

She was also politically active.

Life

Youth

Ding Ling was born 12 October 1904 in a wealthy landowner family in Hunan Province. Thanks to its progressive mother, she began at a young age, to be interested in politics and involvement in social issues.

Your studies in Changsha and Shanghai do not graduating, but learned during which some young writers know. From 1923 she lived in Beijing together with her lover Hu Yepin and published in 1927 her first story, Meng Ke ( "梦 珂"). The success of this story caused them a year later to the publication of another work, Diary of Sophia ( "莎菲 女士 的 日记," Shafei Nüshì de Riji; ISBN 3-518-01670-9 ), which is one of their most important. It is about a desperate, sick, young woman who is unable to cope with their desires and passions in a partly conservative, partly capitalist environment and is gradually being selfish and cruel. Even this extensive narrative enjoyed rapid recognition and gave the name Ding Ling reputation in literary circles.

Life in Shanghai

Ding Ling moved with Hu Yepin and the young writer Shen Congwen back to Shanghai, where she wrote three volumes of short stories in the following years. Topics covered in these texts thing mainly the issue of women and practiced social criticism. In 1928 she undertook with Hu and Shen made ​​an unsuccessful attempt to set up his own publishing house, red and black.

1930 Ding Ling and Hu Yepin a son was born. That same year, Hu was arrested for his Communist activities of the Kuomintang and later executed. This and a mature political consciousness led the writer to enter 1932 in the Chinese Communist Party. She began her major novel Mother ( "母亲" Mǔ Qin ) and was still able to finish the first part, before she was arrested in 1933 by the Kuomintang. Three years later, she managed to escape to Yan'an, an area that was controlled by the " Long March " of the Communists.

Yan'an Period

There learned Ding Mao Zedong, and began again to be politically and intellectually active. Later thing learned the dark side of the communist order and wrote some critical stories, including The Hospital. In order they founded a movement of writers of Yan'an, which were also very concerned about the ever widening gulf between Marxist ideals and reality. Especially the hypocrisy and occasional cruelty of the CCP leaders reaped massive criticism. The leaders responded with a rectification campaign and succeeded Mao to shake the position of thing. She was banished to the countryside. After two years she returned and continued her work. Now living with Chen Meng.

Peak of career

Shortly before the takeover by the CCP throughout the country, she finished in 1948 her novel sun over the river Sanggan (太阳 照 在 桑干河 上Tài Yáng zhào zài sang Ganhe shàng ), for which she was awarded the Stalin Prize. Thus, her career developed as a communist activist rapidly, she traveled around the world, participated in conferences and celebrations and was appointed editor of the Literary Gazette, the central cultural newspaper in China. She practiced massive criticism of "bourgeois " writers, including to former friends, helped to their detention and tried fanatic, the party line to remain faithful.

Life in prison

But even this did not save her loyalty to the Party. In 1955 she was branded as a traitor and 1957, was sentenced after a short resting phase, to work on a farm in the far north. 1960-1964 she still enjoyed relative freedom, as of 1964 they went again with full force against them. During the Cultural Revolution, she had to endure mental and physical torture and do hard work. The manuscripts of their unpublished works were destroyed. In 1970, she was put in a prison and held captive six years in miserable conditions. After Mao's death and the defeat of the Gang of Four Ding Ling was released from prison in 1979 and rehabilitated. In subsequent years, she criticized the Communist Party, but rather distant.