Jing Tsu

Jing Yuan Tsu (; born 1973 ) is a Taiwanese-American author and professor of East Asian studies. Born in Taiwan, she immigrated to the United States at the age of nine. After receiving a PhD from Harvard University in East Asian languages and civilizations in 2001, she became a professor at Yale University.

At Yale, Tsu was named the chair of the Council on East Asian Studies at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies and Jonathan D. Spence Professor of Comparative Literature and East Asian Languages and Literatures in 2024. Tsu has published three books; her third, Kingdom of Characters, was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize and a nominee for the Baillie Gifford Prize.

Early life and education Jing Tsu was born in Taiwan in 1973. In primary school, Tsu was a troublesome student; in a 2023 interview, she recalled her teachers referring to her as "female tiger" due to the lack of effect punishment had on her. and was later awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2016. She became an assistant professor at Yale University in 2006, teaching post-20th century Chinese culture and literature. Tsu later became the chair of the Council on East Asian Studies at the MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale, and in 2019, she was named the John M. Schiff Professor of East Asian Languages and Literatures and of Comparative Literature.

Authorship Tsu published her first book, Failure, Nationalism, and Literature: The Making of Modern Chinese Identity, 1895–1937, in 2005. She followed it with Sound and Script in Chinese Diaspora, released in 2010 by Harvard University Press, which was described as "groundbreaking" and "captivating". The book begins focused upon the period of decline that China suffered at the beginning of the 20th century, and covers the subsequent innovations and developments of the Chinese language made in order to standardize and modernize it. It additionally follows the lives of the individuals who spearheaded said innovations. The book was very positively received; it was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize and a nominee for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. as well as book reviews.