Yu Lihua

Yu Lihua (Chinese: 于梨華, 28 November 1929 – 30 April 2020) was a Taiwanese writer who wrote over thirty works—including novels, short stories, newspaper articles and translations—over sixty years. She is regarded as "one of the five most influential Chinese-born women writers of the postwar era and the progenitor of the Chinese students' overseas genre." She wrote primarily in Chinese, drawing on her experience as a Chinese émigré in postwar America. She was celebrated in the diaspora for giving voice to what she called the "rootless generation"—émigrés who had left for a better life but remained nostalgic for their homeland.

She was more than a successful writer; she was a bridge, a cultural ambassador between China and the U.S. In 1975, she was one of the first individuals to be invited back to China after relations between the two countries were reopened. Her work, which until then had been blacklisted in China, began to focus on life in China. Through sponsorship of scholarly exchange programs, her column in China's People's Daily newspaper, and radio broadcasts on the Voice of America, she educated the American and Chinese public about life in each other's countries.