Born: 12 October 1904, China
Died: 4 March 1986
Country most active: China
Also known as: 丁玲, Dīng Líng, Ting Ling, Jiang Bingzhi, 蒋冰之, 蔣冰之, Jiǎng Bīngzhī, Bin Zhi, 彬芷, Bīn Zhǐ
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Ding Ling (丁玲), also known as Jiang Bingzhi, was a prominent 20th-century Chinese author celebrated for her feminist and socialist realist literature. She actively engaged in leftist literary circles aligned with the Chinese Communist Party and was imprisoned by the Chinese Nationalist Party for her political beliefs.
In December 1927, Ding Ling wrote her first novel, “Meng Ke,” published in Beijing’s “Fiction Monthly.” It told the story of a young woman from a declining bureaucratic family in Shanghai, addressing women’s issues and earning the approval of the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Ye Shengtao.
In February 1928, Ding Ling published “Miss Sophia’s Diary” in the same magazine, causing a literary sensation. The diary explored a young woman’s dissatisfaction with her life and her complex romantic and sexual experiences, aligning with the New Woman movement of the 1920s in China.
Later, she became a leader in the literary community in the Communist base of Yan’an, holding key roles in literature and culture in the early government of the People’s Republic of China. In 1951, she received the Stalin Second Prize for Literature from the Soviet Union for her socialist-realist work, “The Sun Shines Over Sanggan River.” However, during the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1958, Ding Ling faced condemnation, leading to her exile in Manchuria. She only found rehabilitation in 1979 before her passing in Beijing in 1986.