Writer and translator Yang Jiang. Photo: IC

By Zhang Lei

It might seem easy to make the biography of an acclaimed centenarian and living Chinese writer a fascinating read – but for writer and translator Yang Jiang, who's borne witness to some of her country's most significant shifts and events, her new biography is more about Yang's own sense of calm, a rare quality in he turbulent times she has undergone.

A plain but rich narrative of Yang's life story, compiled from Yang's own essays and memoirs, the book tracks her life from childhood and early studies to the political storms and social changes of the Mao era she endured with husband Qian Zhongshu, renowned author of classic satire Fortress Besieged.

Yang's biographer is LuoYinsheng, a scholar from Shanghai and prolific writer best known for biographies of scholars such as economist Gu Zhun, former Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua and his wife Zhang Hanzhi. He first began to compiled Yang's bio in 2004.

Old school intellect

Behind her glories, A Century of Elegance: A Biography of Yang Jiang highlights the charm of her personality against tumultuous times including almost every touching detail in her life.

At 100, Yang has outlived both her family members: her only daughter died of cancer in 1997 and her husband passed the following year aged 88.

Bestowed with the academic spirit and personal charisma of the old school Chinese intellectual, through all the ups and downs she has remained gentle and kind, sorrowful at times but without "excessive" grief.

"The three of us were separated…so easily we lost each other. Being all alone, I figured our ‘home' is only a guesthouse during a trip. I don't know where my ‘home' is; I'm still looking for my way home," she writes.

Living by herself for 12 years, Yang has never stopped writing and translating on the same old desk each day. She has organized 40 volumes of her husband's manuscripts with a determination that seems amazing for her age. Such uxorious devotion typifies Yang's life; she still keeps her unadorned home as it was when her husband was alive. Retaining a low profile, she has turned down visitors, skipped celebrations, and refused prizes.

When she was turning 99 last year – a particular occasion to be celebrated, according to her hometown tradition – Yang refused to make a fuss and her "hundredth birthday" was no exception, passing without grand ceremony or public celebration.

"Yang doesn't like birthdays," according to her publisher Dong Xiuyu. The author is known to be publicity shy, even for her own works, and was unavailable for interview.

"We believe a good book should be introduced to readers, but [Yang] is afraid to mislead [them] and make those who don't intend to buy her books buy them," was Dong's explanation.

Industrious linguist

A native from Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, Yang was born in Beijing in 1911 and graduated from Soochow University in Suzhou in 1932. She later studied in Britain and France from 1935 to 1938 with her husband Qian.

She worked for Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in 1953, fluent in both English and French.

In 1957 she was asked to translate Don Quixote into Chinese, and was informed she could choose from any text to translate from. But after comparing five versions in both English and French, she found none could properly embody the original Spanish.

Therefore, at nearly 50 years old, she started to learn Spanish from scratch and didn't begin the actual translation until 1961.

In April 1978, the Chinese Don Quixote was finally published and was later offered as a gift to the King of Spain by former party leader Deng Xiaoping.
Later in 1986, Spain's King Juan Carlos awarded Yang the Medal of King Alfonso X, el Sabio ("the Wise").

During the Cultural Revolution, the intellectual couple fell out of favour and was sent to work on farms. She later wrote Six Chapters from My Life ‘Downunder' to record this difficult time in a humorous way. Published in 1986, her only novel Baptism, is a vivid and witty portrayal of intellectuals receiving their first ideological remolding in the early 1950s.

After losing her husband and daughter, she has devoted herself to translating Socrates's Phaedo to try to figure out death and cure her suffering. "It was a very difficult work, so I could forget myself, as a wife and mother," Yang recalled. She published a popular memoir, We Three (2003) and philosophical essay collection Reaching the Brink of Life (2007) among other works in the decade after she turned 90.

In the words of critic Wen Hongxia, "Possessing the great wisdom to see through the shortcomings and limitations of human nature, Yang's understanding and tolerance of life has enabled her to write in a genuine and gentle way."