Biography

Bing Xin's Philosophy of Life and Legacy

Bingxin was known and respected for her philosophy of love, perseverance, integrity, and optimism. She was full of rich and beautiful emotions with love, as summarized in her life motto and quotation "Love makes everything possible", and she was also really perseverant in her writing career, continuing to write even if she was sick during her old years and saying, "Life begins at eighty".
Her writings, enriched with her life philosophy, are among the most insightful and beautiful in Chinese literature. People praised and loved Bingxin for her deep love and optimism, and on her memorial people paid the last respects with thousands of red roses, Bingxin's favorite flower. To this day, people in China (which include lots of children) still remember Bingxin affectionately.

Works (Note: the list is far from complete)
Fanxing (A Myriad of Stars) (1923)
Chunshui (Spring Water) (1923)
Ji xiao duzhe (To Young Readers) (1926)
Bingxin Quanji (The Collected Works of Bingxin) (1932-1933)
Nangui (Return to South) (1933)

Works available in English
The Photograph. Beijing: Chinese Literature Press (1992)
Spring Waters. Peking, (1929)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_Xin

Bing Xin's Life and Literary Career

Bingxin was born into patriotic family in Fuzhou, Fujian, but moved to the coastal port city of Yantai, Shandong, with her family when she was four. Such a move had a crucial influence on Bingxin's personality and philosophy of love and beauty, as the vastness and beauty of the sea greatly expanded and refined young Bingxin's mind and heart.
It was also in Yantai Bingxin first began to read the classics of Chinese literature, such as Romance of Three Kingdoms and Water Margin, when she was just seven. In 1913, Bingxin moved to Beijing.
The May Fourth Movement in 1919 inspired and elevated Bingxin's patriotism to new high levels, starting her writing career as she wrote for a school newspaper at Yanjing University where she was enrolled as a student and published her first novel. Bingxin graduated from Yanjing University in 1923 with a Bachelor's Degree, and went to the United States to study at Wellesley College, earning a Master's Degree at Wellesley in literature in 1926.
She then returned to Yanjing University to teach until 1936. In 1929, she married Wu Wenzao, an anthropologist and her good friend when they were studying in the United States. Together, Bingxin and her husband visited the different intellectual circles around the world, communicating with other intellectuals such as Virginia Woolf. Later in her life, Bingxin taught in Japan for a short period and stimulated more cultural communications between China and the other parts of the world as a traveling Chinese writer.
In literature, Bingxin founded the "Bingxin Style" as a new literary style. She contributed a lot to children's literature in China (her writings were even incorporated into children's textbooks), and also undertook various translation tasks, including the translation of the works of the great literary figure Rabindranath Tagore. Bingxin's literary career was a really prolific and productive one, and she wrote a wide range of works----prose, poetry, novels, reflections, etc. Her career spaned more than seven decades in length, from 1919 to the 1990s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bing_Xin

冰心簡介︰

　　冰心（1900～）現、當代女作家，兒童文學作家。原名謝婉瑩，筆名冰心女士，男士等。生于福州，幼年時代就廣泛接觸了中國古典小說和譯作。1919 年開始發表第一篇小說《兩個家庭》，此後，相繼發表了《斯人獨惟悴》、《去國》等探索人生問題的“問題小說”。同時，受到泰戈爾《飛鳥集》的影響，寫作無標題的自由體小詩。這些晶瑩清麗、輕柔雋逸的小詩，後結集為《繁星》和《春水》出版。1921年加入文學研究會。同年起發表散文《笑》和《往事》。 1923年畢業于燕京大學文科。赴美國威爾斯利女子大學學習英國文學。在旅途和留美期間，寫有散文集《寄小讀者》，顯示出婉約典雅、輕靈雋麗、凝煉流暢的特點，具有高度的藝術表現力，比小說和詩歌取得更高的成就。這種獨特的風格曾被時人稱為“冰心體”，產生了廣泛的影響。
1926年，冰心獲文學碩士學位後回國，執教于燕京大學和清華大學等校。此後著有散文《南歸》、小說《分》、《冬兒姑娘》等，表現了更為深厚的社會內涵。抗日戰爭期間在昆明、重慶等地從事創作和文化救亡活動。1951年回國，先後任《人民文學》編委等職。作品有散文集《歸來以後》、《再寄小讀者》、《我們把春天吵醒了》、《櫻花贊》、《拾穗小札》、《晚晴集》、《三寄小讀者》等，展示出多彩的生活。藝術上仍保持著她的獨特風格.短篇小說《空巢》.兒童文學作品選集《小桔燈》。冰心的作品還有小說集《超人》、《去國》、《冬兒姑娘》，小說散文集《往事》、《南歸》，散文集《關于女人》，以及《冰心全集》、《冰心文集》、《冰心著譯選集》等。她的作品被譯成多種外文出版。


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