Iris Chang

Chang committed suicide Nov. 9 near San Jose, California, where she, her husband and young son lived.

Her literary agent said Chang had suffered a breakdown about five months ago during a research trip for her fourth book.

In a note to her family, Chang asked to be remembered as the woman she had been before her illness, engaged with life, committed to her causes, her writing and her family.

The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, which Chang spent at least two years researching in the United States and China, chronicles the slaughter, rape and torture of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers in the former capital of China in 1937.

She was spurred to write the book after her parents told her the story of her grandparents, who fled Nanking as the violence was beginning.

The Japan Times Weekly: Nov. 20, 2004
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