Background
Iris Chang was born on March 28, 1968, Princeton, New Jersey, to a family of Taiwan migrants. She spent her childhood in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.
Iris Chang was born on March 28, 1968, Princeton, New Jersey, to a family of Taiwan migrants. She spent her childhood in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois.
Iris Chang attended University Laboratory High School of Urbana in Illinois and graduated in 1985 with a Computer Science Major. She later switched to journalism, earning a Bachelor's degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989. Chang also earned a master's degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1991.
Chang worked as a writer. Her first book was the nonfiction Thread of the Silkworm, published in 1995, but critical acclaim came with her second title, The Rape of Nanking. Chang spent two years researching the book after learning from her family that her grandparents survived the 1937 event in which, as the author reported, hundreds of thousands of Chinese were tortured, raped, and murdered by occupying Japanese forces. The book became a bestseller, earned the respect of contemporary historians, and spurred Chang's work as a social and civil rights activist. In 2003, she released The Chinese in America: A Narrative History, but while researching her fourth book, which concerned U.S. prisoners of war in the Philippines during World War II, Chang suffered a profound emotional breakdown. She was hospitalized for several months, but apparently not cured of her depression. Her body was found in her car along a highway near Los Gatos, California, with a gunshot wound to the head, believed to be self-inflicted.
(The New York Times bestselling account of one of history'...)
1991(In an epic story that spans 150 years and continues to th...)
2003(The definitive biography of Tsien Hsue-Shen, the pioneer ...)
1995Iris Chang was deeply shocked by the subject she was doing research on. The Rape of Nankin affected her maternal grandparents and made Chang a socially active person. She demanded an apology and indemnification from the Japanese officials.
Quotations: "When you believe you have a future, you think in terms of generations and years. When you do not, you live not just by the day - but by the minute."
Physical Characteristics: Iris Chang suffered depression, sleep deprivation, and mental breakdown. Side effects of several medications she was taking and mental problems led to her suicide in 2004.
Quotes from others about the person
“She is carrying the torch.” - Ignatius Ding of Cupertino, executive vice president of the Global Alliance for Preserving the History of WWII in Asia
Iris Chang was married to Bretton Douglas on August 17, 1991. She had a son, named Christopher, born in 2002.
