Amy Siu-haan Cheung is one of Hong Kong's most popular writers, well known throughout the Chinese-speaking world for her books on love and relationships. Her first novel, Women on the Breadfruit Tree, appeared in serialized form in the daily newspaperMing Pao. She has written more than forty widely acclaimed books, including novels and essay collections. She was named one of the ten richest Chinese authors in 2013, as well as one of the ten most influential microbloggers on Weibo, with more than 64 million followers.
Biography
Cheung was born in Hong Kong. She attended Hong Kong Baptist College, during which time she worked part-time as a scenarist and on the administrative staff of a TV station. Her first novel, Women on the Breadfruit Tree, was published in 1995, and as of 2014, Cheung has written more than 40 novels, most of which are in the romance genre. Her works have appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines over the past two decades, particularly in the Hong Kong newspaperApple Daily. Cheung also founded the magazine Amy in 1998.
Works
Cheung's books are described as romance or chick lit, though their endings are often bittersweet or tragic. Many of her books depict relationships strained by social conventions or taboos that are characteristic of Chinese culture. In Hummingbirds Fly Backwards, a young woman who is the manager of a lingerie shop has an affair with a married man who will not leave his wife due to the stigma of divorce. The book is popular for its portrayal of the pressures felt by unmarried women in their late twenties or older, known as xing nu in Hong Kong but socially stigmatized and referred to as sheng nu in mainland China, where marriage rates are as high as over 90 percent for women aged 35. The original Cantonese title is a tongue-in-cheek play on the term "A-quality women." A Chinglish pun that can be understood by locals in the former British Hong Kong, "A-Cup" refers to the characters' bra cup sizes and sounds identical to "A級", or "A-quality," a term used to describe desirable women who are considered "the total package." In For Love or Money, a mother from a well-to-do family hatches a plot to manipulate her son into abandoning his dreams of becoming an artist and joining the family business. In 2014, the novel was made into the film For Love or Money, starring Liu Yifei, Rain, and Joan Chen.
