Yu Lihua

Early life and education Yu was born in Ningbo in 1929 and moved to Taiwan in 1948 during the Chinese Civil War. She attended National Taiwan University, where she graduated with a degree in history in 1953. That year, Yu emigrated to the United States and enrolled in the School of Journalism at the University of California at Los Angeles. In 1956, even though she failed UCLA's English proficiency exam and was turned away from their literature program, she won the Samuel Goldwyn Writing Award with her story "The Sorrow at the End of the Yangtze River." (杨子江头几多愁). She received her master's degree in history in 1956.

Career After UCLA, Yu wrote several pieces in English, which were all rejected by American publishers. Not to be stopped, she returned to writing in Chinese and began her long writing career in earnest. In 1967, her breakout novel, "Again the Palms" (又見棕櫚, 又見棕櫚) won Taiwan's prestigious Ch'ia Hsin Award for best novel of the year. She continued to write into her late eighties.

Yu taught Chinese language and literature at the University at Albany, State University of New York from 1968 to 1993. She continued her writing career throughout her time at SUNY. She was instrumental in starting exchange programs that brought many Chinese students to the campus.

In 2006, Yu received an honorary doctorate from Middlebury College.

Personal life Yu was married to physics professor Chih Ree Sun, with whom she had three children: daughters Lena Sun, Eugene Sun, and Anna Sun. After their divorce, Yu married University at Albany president Vincent O'Leary. After O'Leary's retirement, they moved to San Mateo in 1997 and to Gaithersburg, Maryland in 2006.

Death Yu died of respiratory failure brought on by COVID-19 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, on 30 April 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic in Maryland.