I still remember that at that time, Yu Lihua asked everyone: How does the makeup that was recently renovated look good?

At an early age, she warmly encouraged me to call her Sister Yu. Petite, she is known as the originator of international student literature, likes to laugh and call grandma, and laughs and asks crisply: Do you want to be called Aunt Yu?

Yu sister was snatched away by the new crown pneumonia in her sleep on April 30 in the United States!

The first time she and Professor Xia Zhiqing were invited to give a lecture at Harvard was in the 1980s. She hugged me closely, and I seized the opportunity to ask her how to write from the history department, and I was surprised to hear about her past, and she did not secretly talk about emotional marriage.

When she was a student at National Taiwan University, she published novels under the pen names Fang Lixia and Hongming, and graduated to study in the United States. When she first arrived in the United States, she worked hard, often in the busy of washing the floor and cleaning the toilet, cleaning the meat grinder... Relatives introduced Sun Zhirui, who was studying for a Ph.D. in physics at los Angeles, and correspondence assisted her in applying for admission to the journalism department of the same university.

Before her master's degree, her English-written "Yangtze River Head Sentimentality" won the Samuel Goldwin Creative Award set up by MGM Pictures at los Angeles University. Her confidence grew, and she wrote in her diary: No matter how difficult I am, I must stick to it now.

In 1956, she married Dr. Sun Zhirui, and was married for more than 20 years, with two daughters and a son. After the birth of the youngest daughter, because of the responsibility of her children, she was depressed and depressed, and the writing became a fool's dream, so she took her daughter back to her mother's house and was taken care of by her grandmother.

Professor Sun was the son of Sun Yuren, the cousin of the famous anti-Japanese general Sun Liren, and Mrs. Gong Xitao, who stayed in the general's hometown, regarded him as her own. He studied at Southwest United University and then received his bachelor's degree from the University of Calcutta. He received his Ph.D. in 1956. He then became a senior fellow at Princeton University, where he taught at Northwestern University, Queen's College in New York City, and then at Albany New York State University.

Yu sister sorted out the old affairs of the family, saying that she interpreted it with her own clever, frank, and somewhat scheming shadow, and wrote "Dream Back to Qinghe" in 1961, and the following year took her children back to Tainan with a manuscript, serialized by the crown, and compiled into a radio novel, which was published in 1963 and republished 6 times.

When the radio station aired at 8 o'clock every night, Yu Father went for a walk, did not listen, and felt that the father in the book was talking about him... Yu Sister rose to fame in the literary world. With the solidarity of her mother's family, she struggled to weave her dreams, deeply feeling that becoming a writer was more important than anything else, and also completed the short story collection "Return" and the long-standing "See Palm Again" completed in 1967.

Life in the move from Chicago to New York is dazzling. Before teaching at the State University of New York in 1968, she and Professor Xia Zhiqing went to the Alhama Hotel to meet Zhang Ailing, and then asked for soup dumplings at restaurants... Yu sister invited Zhang Ailing to give a speech at the state university in late spring. But she still said: In New York, I was confused and couldn't find what I wanted.

On April 23, 1979, Yu Sister zai had a dinner party with Elder Xia and his master's mother Wang Dong and Qian Zhongshu. In 1981, Hong Kong planned to publish the 14-volume "Yu Lihua Works", and Mr. Qian wrote the title of the book for her.

Yu Lihua's works, including "Test", "See Palm Again, See Palm Again", and "Between Departure and Farewell", wrote until the whole night. Not insomnia, but immersion in fiction, unable to extricate yourself. The latter wrote for three years, for a long time can not write, every time shelved particularly hard, after writing the mood did not relax, can not put down the characters in the book.

Yu Sister also has a romantic legend. The wheelchair-bound President Oliven (President of the University of New York from 1977 to 1990) impressed half a hundred of Yu's sisters with their rapid attacks at flower, wine, and candlelight dinners, and they married in 1982.

On June 19, 1993, at Harvard, I raised money to buy a plane ticket and invited her, and at the welcome dinner, Ye Jiaying's consultant, who was a close friend of the writer, also came.

In 2006 , in order to take care of the principal , Yu 's sister decided to live closer to her children and moved east to Gaithersburg. The husband and wife chose a luxurious elderly community with medical care, but unexpectedly, she was infected with the new crown virus by medical care for two years.

She often said: In the United States, I can only fall leaves, not return to the roots... In the summer, she had to prepare tissues and wipe the tears of her children for three months of compulsory Chinese lessons, otherwise she would obsessively step up her writing... In 2006, she received an Honorary Doctor of Letters from Matilda College, Vermont, in recognition of her contributions to writing and language teaching.

When we talk about it, we always see her in good spirits, warm and comforting, and will point out our marriage. I heard that I occasionally have spare time, I will dance ballroom dances, busy saying this is good, help to manage feelings. She walked, swam, played tennis all year round... When I am still on stage, I will ask everyone frankly: Is the recently renovated makeup good?

Yu's sister was the second oldest in the family, and her brother died prematurely due to malaria. Yu sister listened to her mother sobbing and muttering to herself, "Why did you die?" Why didn't Li Hua die? "Isn't this the pity of her life?" She has devoted 75 years of persistent writing to women– Yu Lihua's talent has emerged early, and her creations have profoundly depicted the loneliness that is difficult to let go, not only allowing the literary world, looking at the weakness of the last century struggling in the cultural conflict, witnessing the vulnerable situation of Chinese men in the Western world, and uncertain; especially rarely, focusing on the double repression of vulnerable women in the global society. It is the meaning of LiHua's writing.

—Written at Harvard

Column Editor-in-Chief: Huang Wei Text Editor: Zhu Rui Title Image Source: Ren Ruwen Provided Photo Editor: Shao Jing