AustLit

'Hong Ying (b. 1962) was born in Chongqing. Her father worked on the cargo boats plying the Yangtze, and she grew up in the lower strata of society. Her career as a poet began with the publication of her Cycle of Poems in a workers’ literary magazine, and in 1988 she published her first collection, Bird of Paradise. After relocating to London, her poem “Poetry and Fleeing for One’s Life” won the UK Chinese Poetry Prize in 1991, and she went on to win a number of poetry prizes in Hong Kong and Taiwan. She then went on to establish herself as a prize-winning novelist for works that have been translated into many languages and turned into TV series. Her novels include Daughter of the River, Summer of Betrayal, K: The Art of Love, The Concubine of Shanghai and Peacock Cries: her novel K was awarded the Primo de Rome Prize in 2005. Her most recent collection of poetry spans thirty years of her poetic life, and has the title: I Too Am Salammbo (2013).' (Vagabond Press Bio)