Conversation
03.02.22
Remembering Jonathan Spence
A few weeks after Jonathan Spence, the celebrated historian of China, died at Christmas, ChinaFile began collecting reminiscences from his classmates, doctoral students, and colleagues spanning the five decades of his extraordinary career as a...
Viewpoint
02.16.19
Roderick MacFarquhar: A Remembrance
When Roderick MacFarquhar passed away on February 10, 2019, I was left with a deep regret: that our friendship had been too short.“He can be very intimidating. Don’t be put off by it; it’s just a mannerism,” Nancy Hearst, the librarian at Harvard’s...
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08.31.17David Tang, Fashion Retailer and Raconteur, Dies at 63
New York Times
David Tang, the founder of Shanghai Tang, a global chain of flashy emporiums of Chinese-inspired clothing, accessories and home furnishings, and a prominent writer and raconteur in Hong Kong and Britain, died on Tuesday in London. He was 63.
Conversation
07.14.17
Liu Xiaobo, 1955-2017
When news this morning reached us that Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo had died, we invited all past contributors to the ChinaFile Conversation to reflect on his life and on his death. Liu died, still in state-custody, eight years into his 11-...
Conversation
03.22.17
China Writers Remember Robert Silvers
Robert Silvers died on Monday, March 20, after serving as The New York Review of Books Editor since 1963. Over almost six decades, Silvers cultivated one of the most interesting, reflective, and lustrous stables of China writers in the world, some...
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10.18.16Delia Davin Obituary
Guardian
A pioneer of Chinese women’s studies who avoided the stereotypes offered by the communist regime and its critics
Conversation
08.11.14
Simon Leys Remembered
Isabel Hilton: When I heard the news of the death of Pierre Ryckmans, better known by his pen name, Simon Leys, I began to hunt in my bookshelves for the now yellowing and grimy copies of Chinese Shadows and The Chairman’s New Clothes: Mao and the...
ChinaFile Recommends
06.24.14China's Legendary ‘Crazy Yang’ Oil Trader Dies
Reuters
Legendary Chinese oil trader “Crazy Yang” Qinglong, who started China's oil business with Iran in the 1990s and was renowned as a hard-drinker who bear-hugged Iranian officials, has died, said company officials and former acquaintances.
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02.25.14James Cahill, Influential Authority on Chinese Art, Dies at 87
New York Times
James Cahill was one of the foremost authorities on Chinese art whose interpretations of Chinese painting for the West influenced generations of scholars.
ChinaFile Recommends
01.13.14C. T. Hsia, Who Brought Chinese Literature to the West, Dies at 92
New York Times
Hsia argued that Chinese writers suffered from an "obsession with China."
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05.09.13Bishop Who Brought Church Back From Maoist Persecution, Dies At Age 96
Associated Press
Jin Luxian’s death leaves one of China’s largest and wealthiest dioceses in a deeply unsettled state, underscoring continuing tensions generated by the ruling Communist Party’s control of all organized religions.
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04.18.13Zao Wou-Ki, Seen As Modern Art Master, Dies At 92
New York Times
Zao Wou-ki, one of the few Chinese-born painters to be considered a master of 20th-century modern art in the West, died at his home in Switzerland on April 9, 2013. He was 92.
The NYRB China Archive
10.24.91John King Fairbank (1907–1991)
from New York Review of Books
John Fairbank, who died on September 14 at the age of eighty-four, read virtually all serious Western works on China. Reviewing them, principally for The New York Review in the last several years, was for him one way of keeping abreast of China...