Author Chang found dead aged 36

[emad]

Author Chang found dead aged 36

Author Iris Chang was known for her books on China


Best-selling US author Iris Chang has been found dead at the age of 36.

The writer was discovered in her car on a highway near Los Gatos in California and had a gunshot wound to her head.

Authorities believe the injury was self-inflicted. Chang had recently been treated in hospital after suffering from depression.

Chang was renowned for her books about the Japanese occupation of China as well as the history of Chinese immigrants in the US.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts/4002289.stm

[Richardo]

1. Oh no. She was the author of "The Rape of Nanking"

...that is sad.

[Bunny]

7. You know, I've never been able to bring myself to read that book.

I want to, but I don't think I can handle reading about the atrocities. What a shame that she's gone.

[NewJeffCT]

11. the actual Memorial in Nanjing is very powerful

You could spend all day there reading the stories of the different atrocities committed in China by the Japanese. I got choked up when an aged tour guide there revealed he was a survivor of what happened in Nanjing (He did this by stepping into symbolic foot prints on the ground that were from his own feet...)

[Elidor]

2. Oh, man, how very tragic

She was an excellent writer and very passionate about injustice.
:cry:

May she find peace.

[candy]

3. How sad! n/t

[SoCalDem]

4. How sad..n/t

.

[NewJeffCT]

5. Wow, how sad. I was in Nanjing less than 2 months ago

I was just at the Nanjing Massacre Memorial in September. It was very moving, and I wish I had had more time there. My wife was born in Nanjing and her family still lives there.

[blondeatlast]

6. A sad day for literature...

May she rest forever in God's emmbrace.

[fudge stripe cookays]

8. Oh my God how awful.

She almost singlehandedly brought the Nanking issue back into the spotlight.

How amazingly sad.
FSC

[BigMcLargehuge]

9. OH NO!!!!!!!!

Her book, The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of WW2 changed my life, it was the impetus for the novel I am writing now...

With this and the weight of Veterans Day on my shoulders, I am going to go off and cry now.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

10. Oh that sucks. I just heard her read a few months ago

She mentioned her depression.
Dammmit, when will we realize that fucking disease is killing off our best?

[gollygee]

12. How incredibly sad

tragic.

[skygazer]

13. The whole thing weirds me out

As far as I can figure from the accounts I've read, it happened about a mile down the road from my house. Makes me feel very strange.

I've read her books. And I've been suicidally depressive. Really hits close to home for me, literally and figuratively.

I feel so bad for her family. And for her. I know a little about what she must have been feeling to take such a step. Very sad.