Ying Chen
{{short description|Chinese Canadian author (born 1961)}}
{{Other uses|Chen Ying (disambiguation)}}
{{family name hatnote|Ying|lang=Chinese}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Ying Chen
| native_name= {{lang|zh| 应晨}}
{{lang|zh| Yìng Chén}}
| image =
| alt =
| caption =
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1961|02|20}}
| birth_place= Shanghai, China
| death_date =
| death_place=
| education = Fudan University
McGill University
| occupation = Writer
| notable_works= L'ingratitude (1995)
Immobile (1998)
| awards = Prix Québec-Paris (1995)
Prix Ringuet (2021)
}}
Ying Chen ({{zh|s=应晨|p=Yìng Chén}}; born February 20, 1961) is a Chinese Canadian author. She writes primarily in French and has translated a few of her own works into Chinese and English.{{cite web|url=https://ilcs.sas.ac.uk/research-centres/centre-study-contemporary-womens-writing-ccww/ccww-author-pages/french/ying-chen|title=Ying Chen|publisher=Institute of Language Cultures and Societies|editor-first=Gabrielle|editor-last=Parker|access-date=2025-04-28}} Her 1995 book L'ingratitude received a Prix Québec-Paris.
Biography
Chen was born in 1961 in Shanghai{{cite web|url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ying-chen|title=Ying Chen|last=Le Roux|first=Delphine|date=2014-07-16|publisher=The Canadian Encyclopedia|access-date=2025-04-28}} to an engineer father. She grew up during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, finishing secondary school just two years after entrance exams were reinstated in 1977. She initially wanted to study Chinese literature, but decided to read Modern Languages instead, where she was admitted due in part to her superior marks in Russian. From there, she chose to pursue French over the other two options, English or Japanese.{{cite journal|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/835303|title=An Interview with Ying Chen|last=Stillman|first=Dinah Assouline|journal=World Literature Today|volume=83|number=2|date=Spring 2009|doi=10.1353/wlt.2009.0257|pages=35-37|url-access=subscription}} She obtained a degree in French language and literature from Fudan University in 1983 and spent six years working as a translator in Mandarin, Italian, English, and French at the Institute of Astronautical Research in Shanghai.
In 1989, Chen left China and moved to Montréal to earn a Master's degree in creative writing at McGill University.{{cite web|url=https://library.torontomu.ca/asianheritage/authors/chen_ying/|title=Ying Chen|publisher=Toronto Metropolitan University|access-date=2025-04-28}} Not long after she left China, students were massacred in Tiananmen Square, which made her anxious and homesick. She later compared her migration to Canada to "a form of suicide". She completed her degree in 1991, fulfilling her thesis requirements in two parts: a critical study of Les Dieux ont soif, and an original work, Fleurs de lotus, which became the beginning of her first novel, La Mémoire de l'eau, which she published the following year. Chen and her family lived in Magog, Quebec in the late 1990s and early 2000s before relocating to Vancouver in 2003 to be closer to her husband's job. In 2009, she was a Shadbolt Fellow at Simon Fraser University, which has since named two scholarships in her honor.
Ying Chen's novels include La mémoire de l'eau (1992), Les lettres chinoises (1993; second edition in 1998), and L'ingratitude (1995).{{cite web|url=http://linguaromana.byu.edu/yinchen.html|title=Interview with Ying Chen|publisher= Lingua Romana|interviewer-last=Le Bras|interviewer-first=Yvon|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030210011713/http://linguaromana.byu.edu/yinchen.html|archive-date=2003-02-10|language=fr}} L'ingratitude won the Prix Québec-Paris in 1995 and was translated into English by Carol Volk through Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1998.{{cite web|url=https://villa-albertine.org/va/translator/carol-volk|title=Carol Volk|publisher=Villa Albertine|access-date=2025-04-28}} Chen also translated it into Chinese and it was released under the name {{lang|zh|再见妈妈}} in 2002.{{cite web|url=http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/RS/203801.htm|script-title=zh:应晨：与杜拉斯一样“薄”|trans-title=Ying Chen: As thin as Durasby|date=2002-09-13|website=china.com.cn|language=zh|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20021103021339/http://www.china.org.cn/chinese/RS/203801.htm|archive-date=2002-11-03}} It has since been translated into Italian, English, Spanish, and Serbian. Her next book, Immobile (1998), won the Prix Alfred-DesRochers.{{cite web|url=http://felix.cyberscol.qc.ca/LQ/auteurC/chen_y/immo_yin.html|title=Immobile|website=felix.cyberscol.qc.ca|language=fr|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19991011140105/http://felix.cyberscol.qc.ca/LQ/auteurC/chen_y/immo_yin.html|archive-date=1999-10-11}}
She self-translated Le champ dans la mer (2002) into Chinese as {{lang|zh|V家花园}} (2016) and Querelle d'un squelette avec son double (2003) into English as Skeleton and its double (2016). Other books include Le Mangeur (2006), Un enfant à ma porte (2008),{{cite web|url=https://prix-litteraire-soroptimist.fr/editions/edition-2010/ying-chen/|title=Ying Chen|publisher=Organisation internationale de la francophonie|date=2010|access-date=2025-04-28|language=fr}} Espèces (2010),{{cite web|url=https://www.lyonne.fr/auxerre-89000/actualites/ying-chen-une-auteure-singuliere-et-passionnante_11852786/|title=AUXERRE. Ying Chen, une auteure singulière et passionnante|trans-title=AUXERRE. Ying Chen, a unique and fascinating author|date=2016-04-02|publisher=L'Yonne Républicaine|access-date=2025-04-28}} and La Rive est loin (2012).{{cite web|url=https://journalmetro.com/culture/310441/questions-en-rafale-avec-lauteure-ying-chen/|title=Questions en rafale avec l’auteure Ying Chen|trans-title=Q&A with author Ying Chen|date=2013-05-14|publisher=Journal Metro|access-date=2025-04-28|language=fr}} She also has two books of essays, Quatre mille marches: un rêve chinois (2004) and La lenteur des montagnes (2014),{{cite news|title=Featured Readers|url=https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=litfest-2016|date=September 2016|publisher=Old Dominion University|page=3}} and has published poetry in French and Mandarin. In 2001, she served as a judge on the panel for the 2001 Governor General's Award for French-language fiction.
Personal life
Chen and her husband have two sons, Yuan (born 1996) and Lee (born 1998). When she became a Canadian national, she "yielded to North American practice, putting family name last." This, in effect, turned her birth name into a nom de plume.
Selected works
- {{cite book|title= La Mémoire de l'eau|date=1992|isbn=978-276-093-145-9 |location= Montréal |publisher= Leméac}}
- {{cite book|title=Les Lettres chinoises|date=1993|isbn= 978-276-093-157-2 |location= Montréal|publisher=Lemeac}}
- {{cite book|title=L'ingratitude|date=1995|isbn= 978-276-091-518-3|location= Montréal|publisher=Leméac}}
- {{cite book|title=Les Lettres chinoises|date=1998|isbn=978-2-7427-1955-6|location=Arles, France|publisher=Actes Sud|edition=Second}}
- {{cite book|title=Immobile|date=1998|isbn=978-289-052-929-8|location= Montréal|publisher=Boréal}}
- {{cite book|title=Le champ dans la mer|date=2002|isbn= 978-276-460-127-3|location= Montréal|publisher=Boréal}}
- {{cite book|title=Passages: welcome home to Canada|chapter=On the Verge of Disappearance (End of the Chinese Letters)|date=2002|publisher=Doubleday Canada|location=Toronto|isbn= 978-038-565-893-5}} (Anthology).
- {{cite book|title= Querelle d’un squelette avec son double|date=2003|isbn= 978-276-460-238-6|location= Montréal|publisher=Boréal}}
- {{cite book|title=Quatre mille marches: un rêve chinois|date=2004|isbn= 978-202-065-379-4|location=Paris|publisher=Éditions du Seuil}}
- {{cite book|title=Le mangeur|date=2006|isbn= 978-276-460-432-8| location= Montréal|publisher=Boréal}}
- {{cite book|title=Un enfant à ma porte|date=2008|isbn= 978-276-460-637-7 |location= Montréal|publisher=Boréal}}
- {{cite book|title=Espèces|date=2010|isbn= 978-276-462-037-3|location= Montréal|publisher=Boréal}}
- {{cite book|title=La Rive est loin|date=2012|isbn= 978-276-462-214-8|location= Montréal|publisher=Boréal}}
- {{cite book|title= La lenteur des montagnes|date=2014|isbn= 978-276-462-330-5 |location= Montréal|publisher=Boréal}}
- {{cite book|title=Blessures|date=2016|isbn= 978-276-462-448-7| location= Montréal|publisher=Boréal}}
- {{cite book|title= Rayonnements|date=2020|isbn= 978-276-094-840-2| location= Montréal |publisher= Leméac}}
Awards
Chen has twice been nominated for the Governor General's Award for French-language fiction: once for L'ingratitude in 1995 and again for Immobile in 1998. L'ingratitude was also nominated for a Prix Femina (1995).
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Ying}}
Category:21st-century Canadian novelists
Category:Chinese emigrants to Canada
Category:Canadian writers of Asian descent
Category:Canadian women novelists
Category:Naturalized citizens of Canada
Category:Short story writers from Shanghai
Category:Fudan University alumni
Category:21st-century Canadian women writers
Category:Canadian novelists in French
Category:Chinese women novelists
Category:Canadian women short story writers
Category:Chinese women short story writers
Category:Chinese short story writers