Ding Ling (Chinese writer) Add a review

Ding Ling (Chinese: 丁玲; pinyin: Dīng Líng; October 12, 1904 – March 4, 1986), formerly romanized as Ting Ling, was the pen name of Jiang Bingzhi (simplified Chinese: 蒋冰之; traditional Chinese: 蔣冰之; pinyin: Jiǎng Bīngzhī), also known as Bin Zhi (彬芷 Bīn Zhǐ), one of the most celebrated Chinese women authors of the 20th century. She is known for her feminist and socialist realist literature.

Ding was active in leftist literary circles connected to the Chinese Communist Party and was imprisoned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or "KMT") for her politics. She later became a leader in the literary community in the Communist base of Yan'an, and held high literature and culture positions in the early government of the People's Republic of China. She was awarded the Soviet Union's Stalin second prize for Literature in 1951 for her socialist-realist work The Sun Shines Over Sanggan River.

Ding's political loyalties were questioned over time because of a note she had written while being held captive by the KMT and because of her relationship with Feng Da, who had betrayed her to the KMT, during this period. After the Anti-Rightist Campaign in 1958, Ding was denounced and purged and was sent to exile in Manchuria. She was rehabilitated only in 1979 and a 1984 Communist Party resolution formally affirmed that the initial 1940 investigation concluding that she had remained loyal while in KMT custody was correct. Ding died in Beijing in 1986.