Refuge, Resilience, and Reinvention

“While one rightly admires all of Professor Kang-i Sun Chang’s academic accomplishments, one is even more deeply moved by her perseverance and resilience in overcoming all the sorrows and challenges she faced in pursuing-and achieving-a meaningful life. Her life story, marked by the trials and tribulations she navigated, testifies to the power of faith, hope, and love.” -Josephine Chiu-Duke, University of British Columbia, and co-translator, From Rural China to the Ivy League: Reminiscences of Transformations in Modern Chinese History by Yü Ying-shih

“Both personally moving and historically significant, this memoir traces Kang-i Sun Chang’s life after immigrating from Taiwan in 1968, from graduate studies to a distinguished career at Yale. It offers vivid portraits of renowned scholars across Asia, Europe, and the US, and deeply personal reflections on Taiwan’s White Terror, including her interview with her father’s arresting officer, who confessed he had always known her father was innocent. After decades of silence, Chang’s father finally spoke with her about his imprisonment in a moving exchange she recounts in the book. This is just one example of the intertwining of personal memory and political history that makes this book a vital account of the émigré Chinese experience and a landmark contribution to the intellectual history of Chinese studies.” -Ronald Egan, Stanford University

• Kang-i Sun Chang is Malcolm G. Chace ‘56 Professor Emeritus of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University. Born in Peking in 1944 and raised in Taiwan during the White Terror, Chang came to the U.S. in 1968. She holds a PhD from Princeton University and has published eight books in English and more than thirty in Chinese. In 2012, she received the DeVane Medal for distinguished undergraduate teaching and scholarship. In 2015, Dr. Chang was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2016, she was appointed an Academician of Academia Sinica in Taiwan.

• Linda Chu is Assistant Professor of Translation Studies and Chinese Literature at National Taiwan Normal University. A native of Los Angeles, Dr. Chu graduated summa cum laude from UCLA, with a degree in political science and international development studies, and holds a PhD in translation studies from National Taiwan Normal University. Her research interests include late-imperial cultural and literary encounters and exchanges between China and Europe, comparative rhetoric, and Sinophone studies.

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