Photo courtesy Hing Ying
Says Humphrey Hawksley:
“I first met the Chinese writer Hong Ying many years ago in a fashionable bookstore in London’s upmarket Chelsea district. She was surrounded by literary stars and critics, looking a little tense, yet somehow pensive, elegant, patient. A blend of curiosity and bewilderment creased her face while, just beneath, there was an expression best described as a hard-as-nails vigilance.
The gathering was during the bubbling optimism of the late 1990s; the Cold War was over, and the world was opening up. Hong Ying was launching “Daughter of the River,” her first autobiographical account of her childhood in a crime riddled Yangtse River slum, about as far removed from the Chelsea chattering classes as you could get. […]”
Published in Nikkei Asia: Acclaimed Chinese-born writer tackles feminism and sex
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