Ping Lu

For the former Director of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the Chinese government, see Lu Ping.

Ping Lu
Ambassador-at-large
Born	Lu Ping 1953 (1953) (age 71) Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Nationality	Chinese
Occupation	Writer
Known for	Social commentary

Lu Ping (Chinese: 路平; pinyin: Lù Píng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lō͘ Pêng), born in Kaohsiung in 1953, is a Taiwanese writer who writes under the pen name “Ping Lu”. Her writing encompasses a broad range of genres, including novels, essays, poems, commentary, and theater plays. She is also known in the Chinese-language world for her critique of social phenomenon, ranging from cultural development to gender issues and human rights. Over the past two decades, Ms. Lu has successfully established herself as a prominent novelist, columnist, and commentator in Taiwan.

Background

Ms. Lu graduated from the Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University, and gained a master's degree from the University of Iowa. While working as a statistician in the United States, she won first prize with her short story "Death in a Cornfield" in the 1983 United Daily News fiction competition. Her other works also won her many prizes, including a prize in prose and a prize in dramatic composition. In 2002, she published a novel about the death of a famous Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng entitled "When Will You Come Again?" (Chinese title: 何日君再來).

Literary works

Of her literary works, "Love and Revolution" (Chinese title: 行道天涯; The Chinese version first came out in 1995, while the English version was published by Columbia University Press in 2006)attracted the most attention. Ms. Lu re-imagines the lives of Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching-ling, a legendary couple in modern China. She not only explores their marital relations, including their failings and desires, but also mentions Sun Yat-sen's political career and Soong Ching-ling's feelings of isolation and loneliness after her husband died. As Perry Link pointed out in his article entitled "Chinese Shadows" (published on November 16, 2006, by The New York Review), Ms. Lu also tries to find in Soong Ching-ling "the person buried under all the layers of image-making" and to "reconstruct a credible portrait" of the famous woman. He also said Ms. Lu "succeeds in showing the ordinary and sometimes repugnant details of Qingling's life," and that she "may or may not be accurate about Qingling's inner life, but she certainly writes with honesty and with penetration."

Ambassador at Large

Prior to taking up her current post as director of Kwang Hwa Information and Culture Center in January 2003, Ms. Lu had worked as an editorial writer for The China Times, spent many years lecturing on such subjects as feminism, cultural criticism, and news commentary at National Taiwan University and Taipei National University of the Arts, and served as ambassador-at-large for Taiwan for a few years.

Bibliography

Works listed in the Library of Congress catalog:

• Start early to build good health. (In: At kindergarten.) Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1978.
• Deng Xiaoping zhu zuo si xiang sheng ping da shi dian. (with Zhai Taifeng, Zhang Weiqing) Taiyuan: Shanxi ren min chu ban she, 1993. ISBN 7-203-02333-8
• Kua shi ji de Guangdong gong ye. Guangzhou: Guangdong gao deng jiao yu chu ban she, 1999. ISBN 7-5361-2406-6
• Qi ye zhuan huan jing ying ji zhi shi yong da quan. Shanghai: Xue lin chu ban she, 1993. ISBN 7-80510-856-0
• Shi di chao yue. Nanning Shi: Guangxi ren min chu ban she : Guangxi xin hua shu dian fa xing, 1990. ISBN 7-219-01469-4
• Tang Song chuan qi gu shi. Shanghai: Shanghai wen hua chu ban she : Xin hua shu dian Shanghai fa xing suo fa xing, 1983-1984.
• Wo kan dao yao yuan di fang di yi dian guang : "chuang ye ren di gu shi". Taibei Shi: Zhongguo sheng chan li zhong xin : Zong jing xiao Lian jing chu ban shi ye gong si, Min guo 81 [1992] ISBN 957-9344-47-7
• Little tadpoles looking for their mother. Shang-hai, China: Children’s Press, 1980.
• Xin shi di shen mei te zheng = Xinshi de shenmeitezheng. Shenyang Shi: Liaoning da xue chu ban she : Liaoning sheng xin hua shu dian fa xing, 1988. ISBN 7-5610-0310-2
• Chi dao di chan hui : jian yu nei wai ji shi. Shanghai Zhi shi chu ban she: Xin hua shu dian Shanghai fa xing suo jing xiao, 1990. ISBN 7-5015-5458-7
• Heng shuo wu ling : di si ye zhan jun jie fang zhong nan ji shi. Beijing: Guo fang da xue chu ban she, 1999. ISBN 7-5626-0942-X
• Hsin li yen chiu. Tʻai-pei shih: Wu chou chʻu pan she, min kuo 72 [1983].
• Kua shi ji de Guangdong xian dai hua tan suo. Guangzhou: Guangdong gao deng jiao yu chu ban she, 2000. ISBN 7-5361-2441-4
• Love & revolution : a novel about Soong Qingling and Sun Yat-sen. (translated by Nancy Du.) New York: Columbia University Press, c2006. ISBN 0-231-13852-0
• Xi yu da shi di hua san. Shanghai: Zhi shi chu ban she, 1990. ISBN 7-5015-5448-X
• Yu qiang nei wai. Xianggang Jiulong: Fan rong chu ban she, 1990.
• Zhongguo zheng zhi shou ce : Zhong Ying ming cheng dui zhao, fu She tuan ji gou jian jie. Xianggang: Shang wu yin shu guan, 1987. ISBN 962-07-6025-5
• Zhongguo zheng zhi shou ce : Zhong Ying ming cheng dui zhao. Xianggang: Shang wu yin shu guan, 1990. ISBN 962-07-6050-6
• Shanxi pi ying zhen shang = The shadow figure treasury of Shaanxi province. Shanghai Shi: Wen hui chu ban she, 2007. ISBN 978-7-80741-128-4 and ISBN 7-80741-128-7