Born in Shanghai in 1961, Ying Chen ??) of Lions Bay, B.C. has written fiction and young adult fiction about her Chinese homeland, mainly in French. Having studied French literature at the University of Shanghai, she obtained a degree in French language and literature from Fudan University. She came to Canada in 1989 to further her studies at McGill University, sometimes working as a translator and interpreter. While Chen was living in Quebec, she began writing in French. She later moved to Magog, Quebec. Her novel Ingratitude received the Prix Québec-Paris in 1996 and was shortlisted for the Prix Femina and a Governor General's Award. Published in English in 1998, it's the story of a young woman named Yan-Zi who seeks escape from her suffocating mother by suicide.

Ying Chen moved to Vancouver in 2003. As a child, one of her schoolteachers once told her "the most simple is the most beautiful", and she has retained this idea. Ying Chen's novels include La mémoire de l'eau, Les lettres chinoises, L'ingratitude (which won the Prix Québec-Paris, and was published in the U.S. as "Ingratitude," translated by Carol Volk, and published in China as "????"? self translated), Immobile (which won the Prix Alfred-DesRochers), Le champ dans la mer (published in China as "V???"?self translated), Querelle d'un squelette avec son double (self translated and published on amazon as "Skeleton and its double"), "Le Mangeur", "Un Enfant à ma porte", "Espèces", "la Rive est loin". She wrote two books of essays: "Quatre mille marches" and "La Lenteur des montagnes".

BOOKS:

The Memory of Water
Chinese Letters
Ingratitude (Douglas and McIntyre, 1998)

[BCBW 2004] "Fiction" "Chinese" "French"