Yan Lan

Yan Lan (born January 17, 1957, in Beijing) is a Franco-Chinese lawyer, investment banker and writer who is best known for directing the Chinese activities of the U.S.-based Lazard asset management firm, and for authoring a memoir on her family's experience of China's Cultural Revolution.

Early life An only child, Lan was born in a family that was part China's ruling class. At first bourgeois and Protestant, her family joined communism in the 1930s. Yan Lan was close to Deng Xiaoping, with whom she vacationed as a child.

Her paternal grandfather, Yan Baohang, is a hero of the Second Sino-Japanese War. In November 1967, during the Cultural Revolution, despite his status as a senior official of the Communist Party, he was accused of revisionism and of spying for the Soviet Union and placed under house arrest. He died in detention a few months later.

Her father, Yan Mingfu, was an official interpreter of Russian for Mao Zedong, notably in his discussions with Nikita Khrushchev. and beaten during the Cultural Revolution.

Her mother, Wu Keliang, is a diplomat and an interpreter of Italian. in 1977, where she studied French. She then attended Peking University, where she graduated with a master's degree in 1984. In 1988, she obtained a doctorate in interstate arbitration law from the Graduate Institute of International Studies In 1994, she was admitted to the Paris Bar Association. In particular, she advised large French companies such as Areva and Saint-Gobain for their Chinese activities. In 2019, Lazard appointed her vice chairman of investment banking / chairman and CEO of Greater China.

Author's career In 2017, she published The House of Yan at Allary Éditions. The book was published in English by HarperCollins in 2020. It is an autobiography in which she tells the story of her family and, simultaneously, that of China.

Recognition In 2012, she was awarded the Legion of Honor for having "contributed to building bridges between France and China, in the economic and legal fields, through her action within the Gide cabinet, but also in the cultural field." In 2018, The House of Yan won the Simone Veil literary award.