Listening to Yang Jiang Talk about the Past

The year 2008 saw yet another new effort from Yang Jiang, this time an authoritative biography based on interviews with the author by one of the author's closest friends, Wu Xuezhao 吳學昭.

In her preface 序 to the work, Yang Jiang waxes humble : "I don't know why anyone would want to write a biography of me" ... "if the biography seems uninteresting, that may be because there is nothing of great interest or import to record!"

Behind her humility is a skepticism towards biography in general -- to write the life story of someone you are not, she reasons, you have to rely on the written records. The oral history dimension of this biography, though, is a source of consolation to her ("I did very much enjoy going over the past with a close friend"), and is perhaps why she gives it her authoritative approval: "This is the only biography to which I am giving my official endorsement."