Dymia Hsiung
Dymia Hsiung | |
|---|---|
| Born | Cai Daimei 1905 |
| Died | 1987 (aged 81–82) |
| Resting place | Hampstead Cemetery |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Known for | Being the first Chinese woman to publish a full-length work in Britain. |
| Notable work | Flowering Exile: An Autobiographical Excursion |
| Spouse | Hsiung Shih-I (m. 1923) |
Dymia Hsiung (Cai Daimei; 1905–1987) was a Chinese writer, and the first Chinese woman to publish a full-length work in Britain.[1][2] During the 1930s and 1940s, she and her husband, playwright Hsiung Shih-I, were well known throughout the country.[3]
Early life
Dymia was born into a literary family in 1905 in Nanchang, China.[1] She married Shih-I Hsiung in 1923.[1] Dymia studied Chinese literature at the National University of Beiping from 1931 to 1935.[1] After graduation, she joined her husband in Britain, where he had been since 1932.[1]
Flowering Exile
In England, the Hsiungs moved in a distinguished literary milieu.[2] Their circle, including fellow writers Chiang Yee and Xiao Qian, has been described as a "Chinese Bloomsbury".[4]
Hsiung's fictional autobiography, Flowering Exile: An Autobiographical Excursion, was published in 1952, and was the first full-length work of either fiction or autobiography published by a Chinese woman in Britain.[2][1] Originally written in Chinese, it was translated by Hsiung's husband, Shih-I.[1] The book told the story of the Hsiungs' life in Britain between the late 1930s to the early 1950s.[5] Though press at the time criticized Flowering Exile as "'prosaic' when compared to other contemporary tales of a ‘China of legend’ that captured ‘the strangeness and the charm of that fabled land’", Diana Yeh has noted that though:
Flowering Exile remained firmly within the middle-class sphere... as an account of Chinese family life in Britain, it also transgressed existing literary boundaries.[2]
In the same year, Hsiung contributed two essays in Chinese to Tienfeng Monthly.[1]
Death and legacy
Dymia Hsiung died in 1987, aged eighty-two, and was buried in Hampstead Cemetery.[2] Her death was announced in The Times, and in the two overseas Chinese newspapers, Sing Tao and Wing Pei.[2]
In 2014, Dymia and Shih-I Hsiung—"two once highly visible, but now largely forgotten Chinese writers in Britain"—were the subject of a shared biography by scholar and activist Diana Yeh.[6] This was described as "the first biographical book in any language to offer a critical survey of Shih-I Hsiung's family story, which has been long obscured and underreported".[7]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Jin, Yifan (2025-04-03). "Dymia Hsiung's Flowering Exile: A Forgotten Chinese Woman Writer's Eclectic Strategy for Self-Representation in Britain". Women's Studies. 54 (3): 296–312. doi:10.1080/00497878.2025.2450835. ISSN 0049-7878.
- ^ a b c d e f Yeh, Diana (2014). The Happy Hsiungs: Performing China and the Struggle for Modernity. RAS China in Shanghai series. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, HKU. ISBN 978-988-8268-58-0.
- ^ Yeh, D. (2022-04-30), Bevan, P.; Witchard, A.; Zheng, D. (eds.), "Chiang Yee and the Hsiungs: Solidarity, Conviviality and the Economy of Racial Representation", Chiang Yee and His Circle: Chinese Artistic and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1930–1950, Hong Kong, China: Hong Kong University Press, ISBN 978-988-8754-13-7, archived from the original on 2024-10-15, retrieved 2025-09-12
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link) - ^ "Sunday Feature: A Chinese Odyssey In London". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 2025-09-12.
- ^ "Dr Diana Yeh writes about her Penguin Books China Cultural Engagement Partnership | British Inter-University China Centre". www.bicc.ac.uk. Archived from the original on 2025-09-09. Retrieved 2025-09-12.
- ^ "Cha: An Asian Literary Journal - Journey to the West: The Happy Hsiungs: Performing China and the Struggle for Modernity". www.asiancha.com. Retrieved 2025-09-12.
- ^ Feng, Wei (2015). "Review of THE HAPPY HSIUNGS: PERFORMING CHINA AND THE STRUGGLE FOR MODERNITY". Asian Theatre Journal. 32 (2): 655–658. ISSN 0742-5457.