Iris Chang

Iris Shun-Ru Chang (Traditional Chinese: 張純如, Simplified Chinese: 张纯如; Pinyin: Zhāng Chúnrú; March 28, 1968–November 9, 2004) was a freelance Chinese American historian and journalist. She was best known for her popular but controversial account of the Nanjing Massacre, The Rape of Nanking. She committed suicide in 2004 after suffering from depression.

Celebrity

As many observers pointed out, whether positively or negatively, Iris Chang went beyond being an author to being a celebrity. The Rape of Nanking placed her in great demand as a speaker and interview subject, and, more broadly, as a spokesperson for an entire viewpoint that the Japanese government had not done enough to compensate victims of their invasion of China. In one oft mentioned incident (as the London Times reported it):

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:she confronted the Japanese Ambassador to the United States on television, demanding an apology and expressed herself dissatisfied by his mere acknowledgement "that really unfortunate things happened, acts of violence were committed by members of the Japanese military". "It is because of these types of wording and the vagueness of such expressions that Chinese people, I think, are infuriated," was her reaction.

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She was described in newspaper accounts as having a "public face" of "supreme control", which critics characterised as being the result of manipulating the public with emotionalism and a hunger for controversy. Despite this she was sought after for opinions on other works of modern Chinese history.

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Iris Chang's visibility as a public figure increased with her final work The Chinese in America, where she argued that Chinese-Americans were treated as outsiders. In one frequently quoted passage she asserted:

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::"The America of today would not be the same America without the achievements of its ethnic Chinese. Scratch the surface of every American celebrity of Chinese heritage and you will find that, no matter how stellar their achievements, no matter how great their contribution to U.S. society, virtually all of them have had their identities questioned at one point or another."

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After her death she became the subject of tributes from fellow writers. Mo Hayder dedicated a novel to her. Reporter Richard Rongstad eulogized her as "Iris Chang lit a flame and passed it to others and we should not allow that flame to be extinguished."

Related Topics:
Mo Hayder - Richard Rongstad

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