Cultural Exchange, has been performed at theaters
in Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Massachu-
setts, and Connecticut.
Bibliography
Burrell, Jocelyn, ed. Word: On Being a Woman Writer.
New York: Feminist Press, 2004.
Danquah, Meri Nana-Ama, ed. Becoming American:
Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant
Women. New York: Hyperion, 2000.
Hammad, Suheir. Born Palestinian, Born Black. New
York: Harlem River Press, 1996.
———. Drops of this Story. New York: Harlem River
Press, 1996.
———. Zaatar Diva. New York: Cypher, 2006.
Simmons, Danny, ed. Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam
on Broadway and More. New York: Atria, 2003.
Marcy Jane Knopf-Newman
Han Suyin (1917– )
Han Suyin is the pen name of the prolific novel-
ist, journalist, political essayist, and biographer
Chou Kuanghu (Elisabeth Rosalie Matthilde Clare
Chou), whose current official name is Dr. Elisa-
beth Comber. She was born in Sinyang, China.
Her father was a Chinese engineer who studied in
Europe, and her mother was Flemish. Han Suyin
has written more than 20 books in English in ad-
dition to other works in Chinese and French. Her
broad oeuvre includes important works of fiction,
autobiography, history, and sociopolitical essays.
Han Suyin’s first published book, Destination
Chungking (1942), is a novel that provides an ide-
alistic account of a young couple fighting for the
nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek. With this
and other subsequent works such as... And the
Rain My Drink (1957), the author expresses her
admiration for Chinese struggles for self-deter-
mination and her desire to make these struggles
comprehensible to English-language readers. In
other fictional works, Han Suyin addresses more
personal issues such as interracial relationships
and the intersection of cultures.
Among Han Suyin’s more striking works is
her multivolume autobiography, a testament
published over the course of almost 30 years and
consisting of The Crippled Tree (1965), A Mortal
Flower (1966), Birdless Summer (1968), My House
Has Two Doors (1980), Phoenix Harvest (1980),
A Share of Loving (1987) and Wind in My Sleeve
(1992). In these sweeping works, Suyin provides
the reader with a portrait of Chinese history and
culture, drawn from ancient history up to the
present and illustrated by the stories of herself and
her family.
Her most controversial works include the two-
volume biography of Chairman Mao, The Morning
Deluge: Mao Tse Tung and the Chinese Revolution,
1893–1954 (1972) and Wind in the Tower: Mao
Tse Tung and the Chinese Revolution, 1949–1976
(1976), as well as her biography of Premier Zhou
Enlai entitled Eldest Son: Zhou Enlai and the Mak-
ing of Modern China, 1898–1976 (1994). The lat-
ter was based largely upon materials derived from
Han Suyin’s numerous meetings with the premier.
All of these works, representing diverse genres,
offer a broad yet richly textured picture of social,
political and intellectual developments in China,
especially over the dramatic and turbulent peri-
ods of the mid-20th century. Through civil wars,
national liberation struggles, revolution and re-
construction, the personal yearnings of everyday
people are situated in the course of world-historic
events.
More than almost any other writer in English,
Han Suyin has brought to life for non-Chinese
readers the events and contexts underlying the
Communist revolution and the specific evolution
of Communism as a social and political philosophy
within China. Her preference for Chinese Com-
munism over Western capitalism, both in terms of
social values and the possibilities for economic im-
provement for the poorest citizens, has been pre-
sented honestly and unapologetically in her works.
Thus she has been viewed in the West as a con-
troversial figure due to her unflinching criticism
of imperialist powers and her willingness to chal-
lenge historians and journalists whose works seek
to legitimize those powers. Western literary critics
have often taken issue with her political views and
outspoken criticism of Western capitalism and its
value systems. She has been subjected to particu-Han Suyin 101