Love, ambition and a lack of politics: Women in China flock to read Eileen Chang

Almost 30 years after her death in Los Angeles, Chang’s work has become a source of solace for a new generation, write Christian Shepherd, Lyric Li and Lisa Movius

Fans stop by the cafe at Eddington House, where Eileen Chang lived in Shanghai, for a drink or to pick up a volume of Chang’s work (Photo for The Washington Post by Qilai Shen)

On the ground floor of an Art Deco apartment building in Shanghai, where the Chinese writer Eileen Chang lived in the 1940s, fans stop at the Chang-themed cafe to sip coffee and read ‘‘Lust, Caution’’, one of her most renowned works.

Others might pick up a different volume - after all, she wrote more than 40 works of fiction, as well as screenplays and translations of Ernest Hemingway – or a Chang tote bag.

On any given day in Shanghai, it’s not unusual to find fans visiting her birthplace or going on guided Chang literary tours.