Chen Danyan

Life and work

First published articles in Chinese journals in the 1970s. After studying Chinese literature at Eastern China Normal University (1978-1982) she worked as an editor for the Children's Epoch magazine.

She dealt mainly with Chinese literature until the mid-eighties when she started writing on the life and the emotional world of adolescent girls. The autobiographical novel Nine Lives (1992) dealt with childhood experiences of the Cultural Revolution. She received the UNESCO-Prize for Peace and Tolerance for Nine Lives and was nominated in 1996 for German Youth Literature Prize. Central to her recent work is an exploration of the world of the young generation in China which has grown up as a result of the one-child family policy of the past two decades.

Another focus of her literary career is articles about her hometown of Shanghai.

Selected works

• 1995 - Nine Lives - a childhood in Shanghai. Zurich.
• 1996 - Niuyue jia ri (New York Holidays). Shanghai. ISBN 7-5321-1475-9
• 2000 - Shanghai de jin zhi yu ye (Shanghai princess). Beijing. ISBN 7-5063-1680-3
• 2002 - Yu he ta de zi xing che. Beijing. ISBN 7-5321-2368-5
• 2006 - Shanghai: China's Bridge to the Future (Cultural China, Man and the Land). Rhinebeck, NY. ISBN 0-7621-0640-9

References

• German Wikipedia