Yilin Zhong

Yilin Zhong
Yilin Zhong
	Yilin Zhong in 2014
Born	China
Occupation	Novelist, journalist, screenwriter, columnist, radio presenter, poet, literary and drama critic
Language	Chinese(native), English
Education	MA in Cultural Studies(UK) BA in Drama(China)
Alma mater	University of Warwick Central Academy of Drama
Period	1984–present
Genre	Literary fiction, literary criticism, essay, poem, play, screenscript
Website
	blog.sina.com.cn/1232115570(CN); yilinzhong.blogspot.co.uk(EN);

Yilin Zhong (simplified Chinese: 钟宜霖; traditional Chinese: 鍾宜霖), born in China, is a British Chinese journalist, screenwriter and author.^[1] She is the author of seventeen novels, two film screenplays, ten books and many other work sincluding poems and literary reviews. She now lives in London.^[2]

Early life

Yilin Zhong was born in China. Her father was a literary editor at China Federation of Literary and Art Union in Beijing, however was exiled to southwest China as miner during the Cultural Revolution. Zhong wrote her first poem at five which was published when she was seven,^[3] and her first short story was published at the age of twelve in Shanghai Youth Literature. At thirteen, she wrote a research thesis 'Who broke up the wood-stone engagement?' and it was released in the academic journal A Dream of Red Mansions Journal^[4] in 1993.

At fourteen, Zhong wrote her first full-length novel Embracing the Sun, which was not published, and then her second novel Sunshine and the Monsoon at sixteen, which was published in 1995 and won her national reputation as the youngest talented writer;^[5] Zhong was interviewed by China Central Television's Book Review.^[6] In 1992 Zhong received an Award voted by national readers, for a short story released in Shanghai Youth Literature, as the 'Best Work of The Year'.

At the age of sixteen, Zhong s decided to go to the Central Academy of Drama and study Drama Literature and Play Writing, while she also passed the exam for the Play Director department.^[1]

Education

She was educated in The Central Academy of Drama at Beijing, China, and achieved a distinction BA degree in Drama Literature and Playwriting.

In 2002, Zhong came to the UK and achieved her MA degree in Cultural Studies from the University of Warwick.^[7] Afterward she immigrated to the UK and has been living in London.^[2]

Career

Yilin Zhong started her creative literary writing when she was five. In 1995, she published her first novel Sunshine and the Monsoon]].^[8] In 1996 she was interviewed by the China Central TV Station's Book Review program as its youngest writer interviewed, and was called 'hugely successful and notable'.^[9] From 1995 to 2002, while Zhong was in Beijing, she worked for Beijing TV station, Beijing Broadcasting station and various magazines and newspapers,^[10] published five books, including three novels, one essays and one short stories collection.^[9] Meanwhile, she also became a successful journalist^[11] and received a National Award for her exceptional contribution on reporting the IT technology blooming in China. Zhong wrote a film script 'Sunshine and the Monsoon' (adapted from her own novel) at the age of nineteen and won the Excellence Award for Chinese Youth Film Script in 1996.^[12] Her translation work 'In a Station of the Metro'(Ezra Pound) was collected into Chinese national high school's Literature Textbook^[13] and Chinese universities' textbook for American Literature.^[14] Her letter to editor was published in 'One person's Literary History'(by Cheng Yongxin, Editor-in-chief of Harvest Literary Magazine) as one of writers' documentaries in contemporary Chinese literature.^[15] Before coming to the UK, Zhong was one of notable contemporary women writers in China,^[16] and belonged to the 'Post 70s Generation' writers.^[17]

After immigrating to the UK in 2002, Zhong has been living in London anonymously and continued writing fictions, essays, drama criticism, etc. In an online news, Zhong said she had decided that she would never work in mass media again after 'working as a journalist in media industry for years' in China, because 'to report news in China', was 'completely a challenge of humanity's conscience and the bottom line'.^[18]^{[deprecated source]} This may have explained why Zhong has completely vanished from media from 2002 to 2015, and has not had any interviews for a dozen years when living in London, while continuing writing and publishing novels and books in Chinese language.

London Single Diary(2009) was her first series written in the UK and published in China. The twin work London Love Story was bpublished in 2010. Her novel Chinatown(written in 2005 at London) was released in 'Harvest' in 2011, which gathered American Chinese writer Ha Jin, British Chinese writer Yilin Zhong, and Taiwanese writer Qi Bang Yuan's works as a 'Special Issue of Oversea-Chinese Writers', and sold out in three months. Zhong attended the London Book Fair in 2012 and met many Beijing writer friends, such as the Vice Editor-in-chief of People's Literature and Pathlight magazines, whom recalled their friendship in Beijing in his published London Diaries.^[19] Zhong also wrote London theater reviews for Chinese newspapers and National Drama Study,^[20] and was cited by Shakespeare beyond English published in the UK.^[21] In 2013, her novel Personal Statement(written in 2000 at Beijing) was published in Shanghai.

In 2013, Zhong joint a reality dating TV show of Channel 4 and appeared on First Dates as herself. This was her first public appearance in the UK and she became the TV advertising model in its first season.^[22] In 2014, Harvest published the Kindle version of Chinatown;^[23] then the paperback edition was published in 2015, and was appraised to have filled the 'remarkable blank space of illegal immigration in contemporary Chinese literature history' (Editor's Review).^[6] In March 2015, Yilin Zhong had her first interview since 2002 with Harvest literary magazine for her new book Chinatown, and the interviewer recommended that 'one of this literary work's very great significance', is that 'it has changed our understanding of the world'.^[23]

In 2015, Zhong took a trip to New York, and then began to write her first novel in English: Dear New York,(1-4); Book 1-3 were written between Dec 2015 and March 2016 in London, and Book 4 was completed in May 2016 in New York. She also sketched a new fiction Miss China and a non-fiction Folks of New York at Manhattan, and then wrote her first collection of poems in English after coming back to London in the fall of 2016. In October 2017, Zhong wrote her latest fiction The Private Scene as the third book of the personal statement trilogy, which was a derivative work of the second book of the trilogy, In London. The novel In London was written in 2005 in London and was published in February 2018 in China, having an unpublished foreword written by Wenfen Chen-Malmqvist, plus a few thousands words relating to political events were deleted due to the publishing censorship in China.^[24] Up until 2018, Zhong has published ten books including eight novels, and nine sold out.^[25] From 2017, Zhong began to write her column The London Scene for Southern Weekend newspaper, her first column in Chinese media.^[26]

Bibliography

Novel

Sunshine and the monsoon 《阳光雨季》(Novel, January 1995)
Say love 《言情》(Novel, September 1998)
A love Fiction 《非一般爱情小说》(Novel, September 2001)
London Single Diary 《伦敦单身日记》(Novel, August 2009)
London Love Story 《伦敦爱情故事》(Novel, May 2010)
Personal Statement 《北京北京》（原名《个人现状》）(Novel, June 2013)
Chinatown (2015 novel) 《唐人街》(Novel, January 2015)
In London (2018 novel) 《在伦敦》（原名《文本生活》）(Novel, February 2018)

London Single Lady Series《伦敦单身女郎》系列 (Fiction, Season 1-5)

S1. The Mayfair Affair 《伦敦恋爱物语》(Novel, forthcoming February 2019)
S2.London Map of Romance 《伦敦爱情地图》(Novel)
S3.London Single Lady 《伦敦单身女郎》(Novel)
S4.Single Girl's Diary 《单身女郎日记》(Novel)
S4 extra.A 36 Hours' Film 《一场36小时的电影》(Novella)
S5.London Single Fairytale 《伦敦单身童话》(Novel)

Essays and short stories

Eyes in Subway 《地铁里的眼睛》(Essay collection, January 2001)
Going to Tibet 《去往拉萨》(Short Story collection, January 2005)
London Single Diary 《伦敦单身日记》系列(season 1-4, TBC)

Other works

The Postmodern Life 《后现代生活》(Novel)
Postmodernism and the Third World 《后现代主义与第三世界研究》(Research Essay, in English)
Sunshine and the Monsoon 《阳光雨季》电影剧本(Film Screenplay, Winner of Excellence Award for Chinese Youth film script in 1996)
London Love Story 《伦敦爱情故事》电影剧本(Film Screenplay, adapted from the published novel)
Dear New York, (Book 1-4, Novel, in English)
Poems Written in London (Poetry Collection, in English)
The Private Scene (Novel)
The London Scene (Collection of short stories)

References

^ ^a ^b "People: Chinese Writer Yilin Zhong exploring love in London/人物特写：在伦敦寻找爱情的华人女作家钟宜霖" (in Chinese). BBC. 4 August 2015. Retrieved 4 August 2015.
^ ^a ^b "Chinatown's Invisible Residents". Shanghai Daily. 30 August 2015.
^ "Zhongkun_news_society-hot/钟鲲-资讯-资讯热点" (in Chinese). Hanwang Book City/汉王书城. 22 November 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ "A Dream of Red Mansions Journal/红楼梦学刊" (in Chinese). 1993. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ "Writing the memory of youth_China Book News/书写青春记忆_中华读书报" (in Chinese). Guangming Net/光明网. 11 April 2001. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
^ ^a ^b "The Postmodern Chinese living in their imagination-'Chinatown' Introduction and Book Review/《唐人街》：在伦敦的中国人" (in Chinese). China Writer Net/中国作家网. 2 March 2015. Retrieved 10 March 2015.
^ "Warwick Classnotes". Warwick. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
^ Frank Meinshausen (6 December 2004). "I do not select Wang Shuo_Ouline online/我不选王朔！-欧览在线" (in Chinese). Suhrkamp. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ ^a ^b 洛希 (March 2007). "Yilin Zhong, A single girl in London_Beatles Magazine/钟宜霖，单身女人在伦敦_《甲壳虫》" (in Chinese). China Knowledge Net/中国知网. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
^ "National Love_Eastern News Daily/倾国之恋-东方早报" (in Chinese). Eastern News Daily/东方早报. 28 July 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
^ "Discover Zhongkun's literary sky_TV interview record_CCTV/感受钟鲲的文字天空_采访记录_中央电视台" (in Chinese). CCTV. 17 December 2001. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
^ "Yilin Zhong_Baike/钟宜霖_百科" (in Chinese). Baidu Baike/百度百科. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ "Translations of Pound's 'In a Station of the Metro'_New Textbook People's Education Edition_Obligatory 1 teaching plan/庞德《地铁车站》的诸种译文_新课标人教版_必修1教案课件" (in Chinese). Chinese textbook room/语文轩. 24 April 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ "The Directory and Content of Selected Readings in American Literature/《美国文学选读（第3版）》目录内容" (in Chinese). Higher Education Publishing House/高等教育出版社. 1 June 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
^ 程永新 (1 October 2007). "One Person's Literary History/《一个人的文学史》" (in Chinese). Tianjing Renminmeishu Publishing House/天津人民美术出版社. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
^ "Post 70s generation's text_Youth News/70年代生青年作家群的情感文本_《青年时讯》" (in Chinese). China.com.cn/中國網. 24 May 2001. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ "New generation's writing_Cultural Friday_China.com.cn/新生代寫作的優勢與局限_文化星期五_中國網" (in Chinese). Beijing Daily/《北京日报》. 29 November 2000. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ "CCTV producer wrote 'leaving CCTV'/央视制片人撰《告别央视》撼动网络" (in Chinese). 大紀元/Epoch Times. 2 December 2013. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ 邱华栋 (January 2014). "London Book Fair's 7 days Diaries/《伦敦书展七日记》" (in Chinese). Fiction Forest/小说林. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
^ 钟宜霖 (30 May 2012). "London Theater: Chinese 'Richard III'/在伦敦观剧：中国版《理查三世》·南方日报数字报·南方报网" (in Chinese). Southern News Daily/南方日报. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ Bennett, Susan; Carson, Christie (29 August 2013). Shakespeare beyond English: A Global Experiment. Cambridge University Press. p. 80. ISBN 9781107435476.
^ "First dates-Mating Season-Channel 4". Channel 4. Retrieved 28 February 2015.
^ ^a ^b 党霄羽 (1 March 2015). "Dialogue: Exploring the value of literature in contemporary time through characters' various lives in 'Chinatown'/对话: 从《唐人街》的众生百态看现世中文学的价值" (in Chinese). Harvest Literary Magazine/《收获》文学杂志社. Retrieved 1 March 2015.
^ "Yilinzhong blogspot". Retrieved 6 March 2018.
^ 钟宜霖的博客 (in Chinese). Retrieved 20 May 2016.
^ 南方周末专栏 (in Chinese). Retrieved 11 November 2017.

External links

Yilin Zhong on Weibo (in Chinese)
Yilin Zhong on Sinablog

[BBC-1] "People: Chinese Writer Yilin Zhong exploring love in London/人物特写：在伦敦寻找爱情的华人女作家钟宜霖" (in Chinese). BBC. 4 August 2015. Retrieved 4 August 2015.

[SHDaily-2] "Chinatown's Invisible Residents". Shanghai Daily. 30 August 2015.

[3] "Zhongkun_news_society-hot/钟鲲-资讯-资讯热点" (in Chinese). Hanwang Book City/汉王书城. 22 November 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[Redmasions-4] "A Dream of Red Mansions Journal/红楼梦学刊" (in Chinese). 1993. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[gmw.cn1-5] "Writing the memory of youth_China Book News/书写青春记忆_中华读书报" (in Chinese). Guangming Net/光明网. 11 April 2001. Retrieved 1 March 2015.

[chinawriter-6] "The Postmodern Chinese living in their imagination-'Chinatown' Introduction and Book Review/《唐人街》：在伦敦的中国人" (in Chinese). China Writer Net/中国作家网. 2 March 2015. Retrieved 10 March 2015.

[warwick-7] "Warwick Classnotes". Warwick. Retrieved 10 February 2016.

[8] Frank Meinshausen (6 December 2004). "I do not select Wang Shuo_Ouline online/我不选王朔！-欧览在线" (in Chinese). Suhrkamp. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[cnki.net-9] 洛希 (March 2007). "Yilin Zhong, A single girl in London_Beatles Magazine/钟宜霖，单身女人在伦敦_《甲壳虫》" (in Chinese). China Knowledge Net/中国知网. Retrieved 1 March 2015.

[10] "National Love_Eastern News Daily/倾国之恋-东方早报" (in Chinese). Eastern News Daily/东方早报. 28 July 2012. Retrieved 1 March 2015.

[11] "Discover Zhongkun's literary sky_TV interview record_CCTV/感受钟鲲的文字天空_采访记录_中央电视台" (in Chinese). CCTV. 17 December 2001. Retrieved 1 March 2015.

[12] "Yilin Zhong_Baike/钟宜霖_百科" (in Chinese). Baidu Baike/百度百科. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[Ezra-13] "Translations of Pound's 'In a Station of the Metro'_New Textbook People's Education Edition_Obligatory 1 teaching plan/庞德《地铁车站》的诸种译文_新课标人教版_必修1教案课件" (in Chinese). Chinese textbook room/语文轩. 24 April 2010. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[university2-14] "The Directory and Content of Selected Readings in American Literature/《美国文学选读（第3版）》目录内容" (in Chinese). Higher Education Publishing House/高等教育出版社. 1 June 2011. Retrieved 8 October 2015.

[15] 程永新 (1 October 2007). "One Person's Literary History/《一个人的文学史》" (in Chinese). Tianjing Renminmeishu Publishing House/天津人民美术出版社. Retrieved 1 March 2015.

[16] "Post 70s generation's text_Youth News/70年代生青年作家群的情感文本_《青年时讯》" (in Chinese). China.com.cn/中國網. 24 May 2001. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[17] "New generation's writing_Cultural Friday_China.com.cn/新生代寫作的優勢與局限_文化星期五_中國網" (in Chinese). Beijing Daily/《北京日报》. 29 November 2000. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[18] "CCTV producer wrote 'leaving CCTV'/央视制片人撰《告别央视》撼动网络" (in Chinese). 大紀元/Epoch Times. 2 December 2013. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[19] 邱华栋 (January 2014). "London Book Fair's 7 days Diaries/《伦敦书展七日记》" (in Chinese). Fiction Forest/小说林. Retrieved 1 March 2015.

[Richard-20] 钟宜霖 (30 May 2012). "London Theater: Chinese 'Richard III'/在伦敦观剧：中国版《理查三世》·南方日报数字报·南方报网" (in Chinese). Southern News Daily/南方日报. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[21] Bennett, Susan; Carson, Christie (29 August 2013). Shakespeare beyond English: A Global Experiment. Cambridge University Press. p. 80. ISBN 9781107435476.

[22] "First dates-Mating Season-Channel 4". Channel 4. Retrieved 28 February 2015.

[shouhuo-23] 党霄羽 (1 March 2015). "Dialogue: Exploring the value of literature in contemporary time through characters' various lives in 'Chinatown'/对话: 从《唐人街》的众生百态看现世中文学的价值" (in Chinese). Harvest Literary Magazine/《收获》文学杂志社. Retrieved 1 March 2015.

[24] "Yilinzhong blogspot". Retrieved 6 March 2018.

[25] 钟宜霖的博客 (in Chinese). Retrieved 20 May 2016.

[26] 南方周末专栏 (in Chinese). Retrieved 11 November 2017.

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