Lu Yin (writer)

Lu Yin (1899–1934) was a 20th-century Chinese writer. Her books are not happy and they discuss the position of women in China in her stories. She was very well known in the 1920s and is best known for her novel The Ivory Ring. Bing Xin, Lin Huiyin and Lu Yin have been called the "three talented women in Fuzhou".

Lu Yin
Lu Yin (庐隐)
Born1899
Died1934
Shanghai
Pen name庐隐
OccupationWriter
NationalityChinese

Life

Lu Yin was born in 1899 and had an unhappy childhood.[1]

She defied cultural norms by marrying Guo Mengliang 郭夢良, a man who was already married. When he died she took to writing to feed herself and her child. She had been well educated at Peking Women's Normal College where she was involved with the May Fourth Movement in 1919. She was known to other rising literary stars including Feng Yuanjun 馮元君 and Su Xuelin 蘇雪林, but particularly Shi Pingmei and Lu Jingqing.[2] Both of these friends had been very close to her during her life with an intimacy that was similar to heterosexual love.[3]

Lu Yin

When her friend Shi Pingmei's admirer Gao Junyu and Shi Pingmei died prematurely she wrote The Ivory Ring. The book tells the thinly disguised story of her friend's loves and his and her death. Her books can be said to be romantic but there are few happy aspects. They discuss the role of women when ambition is denied them and love can be an elusive prize. Her books frequently contain diary entries that are used as a device to move the story forward.[1] Her intimate friend's Shi Pingmei and Lu Jingqing are characters in The Ivory Ring, and Lu Yin and Lu Jingqing act as the narrators of Shi Pingmei's fictionalised story.[3]

In the 1920s Lu Yin was a popular author. Besides novels she also wrote poems, travelogues, short stories and essays.[4]

Lu Yin married again causing chatter this time because her husband, Li Weijian, was nine years younger than her. She died at the age of 35 following a childbirth. Her autobiography was published in the same year.[4] The Ivory Ring has been retold and also made into a film. The "Ivory Ring" story was highlighted by Zhou Enlai when he was premier of a communist China. He visited the couple's graves and highlighted that love and revolution were not incompatible.

Bing Xin, Lin Huiyin and Lu Yin have been called the "three talented women in Fuzhou".[5]

References
  1. Li-hua Ying (1 April 2010). The A to Z of Modern Chinese Literature. Scarecrow Press. pp. 126–128. ISBN 978-1-4617-3187-0.
  2. Shi Pingmei (Shih P'ing-mei) 1902–1928, Renditions.org, Retrieved 3 November 2016
  3. Jianmei Liu (2003). Revolution Plus Love: Literary History, Women's Bodies, and Thematic Repetition in Twentieth-Century Chinese Fiction. University of Hawaii Press. pp. 117–118. ISBN 978-0-8248-2586-7.
  4. Lu Yin, Renditions.org, Retrieved 3 November 2016
  5. Ivory Ring, Abebooks, Retrieved 4 November 2016


Portrait


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