YE, Zhaoyan 1957-

PERSONAL:

Born 1957, in Nanjing, People's Republic of China; son of Ye Shaojun (a teacher, writer, and editor).

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Columbia University Press, 61 West 62nd St., New York, NY 10023.

CAREER:

Novelist and author of short stories and nonfiction.

WRITINGS:

Zui hou yi ban nan min che (short stories), Yuan Liu (China), 1993.

Xuan gua de lu ping guo (short stories), Yuan Liu (China), 1993.

Zao shu de gu shi, Jiangsu wen yi (Nanjing, China), 1994.

Shang shi de ying ziong, Jiangsu wen yi (Nanjing, China), 1994.

Lü se ka fei guan, Jiangsu wen yi (Nanjing, China), 1994.

Feng yue (title means "The Flower's Shadow"), 1994.

Hua sha, Jin ri Zhongguo (Beijing, China), 1994.

Gu lao de hua ti, Jiangsu wen yi (Nanjing, China), 1994.

Ai qing gui ze, Yuan Liu (Nanjing, China), 1995.

Hua ying, Ti di tu shu (China), 1996.

Nanjing ren, Zhejiang ren min (Hangshou, China), 1997.

Lao Nanjing: jiu ying Qinhuai (nonfiction), Jiangsu mei sh (Nanjing, China), 1998.

Xian hua san shog, Bai hua wen yi (Tianjin, China), 1999.

Yi jiu san qi nian di ai qing, Mai tian (China), 2001, translated by Michael Berry as Nanjing 1937: A Love Story, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Dao de wen zhang, Xi yuan (Beijing, China), 2000.

(With Fang Fang) Xian shuo Zhongguo ren (nonfiction), Zhongguo wen lian (Beijing, China), 2001.

Wu yue de huang hun, Shi dai wen yi (Changchun, China), 2001.

Author of other novels and short-story collections published in China.

ADAPTATIONS:

Feng yue was adapted for film as Temptress Moon, 1996.

SIDELIGHTS:

A popular author of fiction in his native China, Ye Zhaoyan is the son of noted editor and educator Ye Shaojun. In 2002 the younger Ye made his English-language debut with the translation of his 2001 novel Yi jiu san qui nian di ai qing as Nanjing 1937: A Love Story.

Nanjing 1937 takes place in the city that was, in 1937, the capital of China, and chronicles the passage of months while the seat of the Chinese government passively awaited the attack by Japan that they knew would come and which ultimately did in mid-December. During that brutal attack, known as "the Rape of Nanjing," 350,000 people would die and 20,000 women would be sexually abused by the invading Japanese army. Into this setting Ye introduces an unlikely romance between Ding Wenyu, a self-indulgent, wealthy, middle-aged university professor, and the vain but beautiful Ren Yuyuan, a lonely young bride of one of Ding's friends who only gradually accepts the smitten professor's repeated attentions out of loneliness due to the absence of her fighter-pilot husband. Praising Ye for "plunder[ing] public libraries and private archives" in his recreation of an "impeccable and fascinating" historical account, Washington Post reviewer Carolyn See noted that, despite the novel's subtitle, the real subject of Ye's novel is people's inability to deal with impending doom; Nanjing 1937, See wrote, "is really about the nobility—or the striking lack thereof—of a population that is about to get whacked. This could easily be 'Baghdad 2003' or, God forbid, 'Washington 2004.'"

Praising Michael Berry's translation as "fluid" and "unobtrusive," a Kirkus reviewer focused on the growing relationship between Ding and Ren, called Ye's novel "a moving and fascinating account of tragic love, narrated with a minimum of sentimentality and a good sense of history." "The contrast between the advance of the Japanese [army] and Ding's slow seduction of Ren is both poignant and deliciously ironic," added a Publishers Weekly reviewer, praising Nanjing 1937 as "winning" and "witty."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 15, 2002, Margaret Flanagan, review of Nanjing 1937: A Love Story, p. 736.

Kirkus Reviews, October 15, 2002, review of Nanjing 1937, p. 1503.

Publishers Weekly, December 23, 2002, review of Nanjing 1937, p. 47.

Washington Post, February 7, 2003, Carolyn See, review of Nanjing 1937, p. C4.*