In 2004, writer Iris Chang, revered author of the international best-seller The Rape of Nanking
, took her own life at the age of 36, sending a shockwave through the literary world and calling attention to the too-often ignored but important need to address mental health issues in the Asian American community.Iris Chang's mother, Ying-Ying Chang, has just published a new memoir, The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang Before and Beyond the Rape of Nanking
, on the life and work -- and tragic death -- of her daughter, largely as a way to let go: Iris Chang's mother's new memoir honors renowned author of 'The Rape of Nanking.'But the book arouses a question of its own: Why would Chang's 71-year-old mother -- a biochemist with no previous writing experience -- willingly reopen the wound left by her daughter's death? For a year after Iris' suicide, Ying-Ying and her husband, Shau-Jin, now 74, were unable to speak their daughter's name without crying. Is "The Woman Who Could Not Forget" also a description of her?Iris Chang's death was a tragedy that reverberated across communities, and left endless questions for her loved ones to deal with. It sounds like the trauma of her daughter's death still continues to haunt Ying-Ying Chang, but with this book, she's now able to put it in the past. For more information about The Woman Who Could Not Forget, go to Amazon here
"A person dies twice," Ying-Ying Chang begins. She is thin but not brittle, her posture upright and her eyes shining as she sits at the dining table of her North San Jose townhome. It is where she was roused from a dreamless sleep just before midnight by Iris' husband, Brett Douglas, and a police officer, who had come to tell her that her daughter -- her beautiful little girl -- would never be coming home.
"One death is mortal," she says, "the other is memory. Iris' body died already, but I don't want the memory of her to die. Her life symbolized a lot of things, gave a lot of people courage. Even though she died, her noble spirit is still here."
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