Kang-i Sun Chang

Early life and education Sun K'ang-i was born on 21 February 1944 in Beijing. Her father, Sun Yü-kuang (孫裕光), was from Tianjin, and her mother, Ch'en Yü-chen (陳玉真), was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The couple met when they were both studying in Japan; they later moved to Beijing, where Yü-kuang taught at Peking University. In 1946, Peking University was unable to pay its employees due to hyperinflation. Influenced by his close friend (張我軍), later a leading literary figure and the father of archaeologist Kwang-chih Chang, Sun Yü-kuang decided to follow Chang and move to Taiwan; Kang-i was two years old at the time. She then studied for two years at the graduate school of National Taiwan University.

Career Chang returned to mainland China for the first time in 1979, and learned that while her father was imprisoned by the Kuomintang in Taiwan, her grandfather Sun Lisheng (孫勵生), who had remained in China, was persecuted by the Communists for his Taiwanese connection, and committed suicide in 1953.

In 2004, Cambridge University Press invited Chang to be the chief editor of The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature. She declined the job at first, but later changed her mind, and invited Stephen Owen of Harvard University as co-editor. The two-volume work was published in 2010.

In 2016, Chang was elected as one of the 20 new Academicians of Academia Sinica.

Publications The Evolution of Chinese Tz'u Poetry: From Late T'ang to Northern Sung (Princeton University Press, 1980). Six Dynasties Poetry (Princeton University Press, 1986). The Late-Ming Poet Ch'en Tzu-lung: Crises of Love and Loyalism (Yale University Press, 1991). Writing Women in Late Imperial China (Stanford University Press, 1997). Feminists Readings: Classical and Modern Perspectives (Taipei: Lianhe wenxu, 1998) Women Writers of Traditional China: An Anthology of Poetry and Criticism, with Haun Saussy and Charles Yim-tze Kwong, eds. (Stanford University Press, 1999). Voices of Literature (Taipei: Sanman, 2001). Challenges of the Literary Canon (Jiangxi: Baihuazhou wenyi Press, 2002). Farewell to the White Terror (Taipei: Asian Culture Press, 2003). The Evolution of Chinese Tz'u Poetry (Peking University Press, 2004). My Thoughts on the American Spirit (Taipei: Jiuge Publishing House, 2006). Tradition and Modernity: Comparative Perspectives, with Meng Hua, eds. (Peking University Press, 2007). Calligraphy of Ch'ung-ho Chang Frankel: Selected Inscriptions (Oxford University Press, 2009). Experiencing Yale (Beijing: Fenghuang Publishing House, 2009). Artistic and Cultural Traditions of the Kunqu Musicians (Guangxi Normal University Press, 2010). Quren Hongzhao, with Ch'ung-ho Chang Frankel. (Taipei: Lianjing Publishing House, 2010) The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature with Stephen Owen, eds. (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Journey Through the White Terror, 2nd edition (National Taiwan University Press, 2013). Modern Perspectives on Classical Chinese Literature (Yiwen Publishing House, 2013). Source: