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People (June 2005)

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_Chang; http://www.irischang.net/biography.cfm) Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968–November 9, 2004) was a political activist while she was a freelance Chinese American journalist. She was best known for her popular book of the Nanjing Massacre, The Rape of Nanking. She committed suicide in 2004 after suffering from depression.

Iris Chang was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and grew up in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, where she earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Illinois in 1989. She worked briefly as a reporter for the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune before completing a graduate degree in writing from the Johns Hopkins University and launching her career as a full-time author and lecturer.

Though not a trained historian, Chang wrote three notable works that document the experiences of Asians and Chinese Americans in history. Her first book, titled Thread of the Silkworm (1995), tells the true story of the Chinese professor, Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen during the Red Scare in the 1950s. Although Tsien was one of the founders of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and helped the U.S military debrief Nazi scientists for many years, he was suddenly falsely accused of being a spy, Communist Party member, and placed under house arrest from 1950 to 1955. Dr. Tsien Hsue-shen left for the People's Republic of China in September of 1955 aboard the merchant ship President Cleveland. Upon return to China, Tsien developed the Don Fong missile program, and later the Silkworm missile, which would endanger U.S. warships during the Persian Gulf War. Finally, The Chinese in America (2003) describes the overall history of Chinese immigrants.

Her second book, the best selling The Rape of Nanking (1997), documents the massacre of Chinese by Japanese soldiers during World War II, and includes interviews with victims. She was supported by anti-Japan groups, and then she started composing the book with this as a start. In The Rape of Nanking, Chang examines one of the most tragic chapters of World War II: the slaughter, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former capital of China. Stories about Chang's grandparents' harrowing escape were part of her family legacy and prompted her to embark on this ambitious project, for which she interviewed elderly survivors of the massacre and discovered thousands of rare documents in four different languages. Published by Basic Books on December 1997 (the 60th anniversary of the massacre) and in paperback by Penguin in 1998, "The Rape of Nanking" - the first, full-length English-language narrative of the atrocity to reach a wide audience - remained on the New York Times bestseller list for several months, became a New York Times Notable Book, and was cited by Bookman Review Syndicate as one of the best books of 1997.

Reader's Digest (September 1, 1998) calls her "The Woman Who Wouldn't Forget" and says "One of history's worst atrocities might have remained little more than a footnote had it not been for Iris Chang."

Her third book is The Chinese in America. Chang took a fresh look at what it means to be an American and draws a complex portrait of the many accomplishments of the Chinese in their adopted country, from building the transcontinental railroad to major scientific and technological advances. A sensitive, deeply moving story of individuals whose lives have shaped and been shaped by this history, The Chinese in America is a saga of raw human tenacity and a testament to the determination of a people to forge an identity and destiny in a strange land.

Chang suffered a mental breakdown that required hospitalization while researching her fourth book, about U.S. soldiers who fought the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II and the Bataan Death March. Even after the release from the hospital, she still suffered from depression. Reports say that news of her suicide hit the massacre survivor community in Nanjing hard. In tribute to Chang, the survivors held a service at the same time as her funeral at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Los Altos, California on Friday, November 12, 2004 at the victims' memorial hall in Nanjing. The victims memorial hall in Nanjing, which collects documents, photos, and human remains from the massacre, will add a wing dedicated to Iris Chang in 2005.