Fengzi

Fengzi
Fengzi on the cover of The Young Companion (February 1941)
Born
Feng Jiren

(1912-08-11)August 11, 1912
DiedJanuary 21, 1996(1996-01-21) (aged 83)
Alma materFudan University
Spouses
  • Sun Yufen
  • (m. 1948⁠–⁠1996)
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese
Simplified Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinFèngzǐ
Birth name
Chinese
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinFēng Jìrén

Feng Jiren (11 August 1912 – 21 January 1996), known professionally as Fengzi (formerly romanized as Fung Tzu), also known as Feng Fengzi, was a Chinese actress, writer, literary editor, and dramatist. Her second husband was the American-born translator Sidney Shapiro.

In the 1940s, Fengzi did underground work for the Chinese Communist Party in Shanghai while also working as an actress (in leftist plays and films) and literary editor (for leftist magazines). She was almost arrested by the Nationalist government, but managed to escape to Beiping.[citation needed] In the Korean War, she briefly went to Korea with the People's Volunteer Army. During the Cultural Revolution, due to having worked with Jiang Qing in the 1930s (when Jiang Qing was an actress), Fengzi was severely persecuted and detained for 4 years. She was rehabilitated after the Cultural Revolution.[citation needed]

One of her short stories, "The Portrait" (畫像), written in 1947, has been translated into English by Ann Huss.[1]

  1. ^ Dooling, Amy D., ed. (2005). Writing Women in Modern China: The Revolutionary Years, 1936–1976. Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-13216-6.