Zhang Ling (author)

Ling Zhang (Chinese: Zhang Ling / 张翎; born 1957) is a former senior audiologist and an acclaimed overseas Chinese writer currently residing in Toronto, Canada. She was born in Wenzhou, with ancestral roots in Cangnan, China and came to Canada in 1986 to pursue her MA in English at University of Calgary. She obtained her second MA degree in Communication disorders at the University of Cincinnati. In the mid-1990s, while working as a clinical audiologist, she started writing and publishing fictional works in Chinese. Since then, she has published ten novels and numerous collections of novellas and short stories. Ling Zhang's works have been translated into many other languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Russian, Hebrew, Japanese and Korean.

Ling Zhang has won numerous prestigious literary awards, including the Author of the Year Prize of Chinese Media Literature Awards, the Grand Prize of Overseas Chinese Literary Awards, and the Cao Xueqing Chinese Literary Prize. She was also short-listed for Dream of the Red Chamber Award.

In 2009, Zhang's novella Aftershock, about the survival of the horrific 1976 Tangshan earthquake, was made into China's first IMAX movie, Aftershock, directed by Feng Xiaogang. This movie became the greatest box office success at the time and has grossed more than US$100 million at the Chinese box office. According to The Wall Street Journal, Aftershock opens the IMAX market to Chinese films. ABC News also mentions that Aftershock becomes the highest-grossing film in China.

In 2011, a lawsuit was launched against Zhang Ling for alleged copyright infringement from works by three Canadian writers. However, the case was closed with no judgment against either of the parties.

Where Waters Meet is Ling Zhang's debut English novel, "beautifully written and artfully complex," according to San Francisco Book Review. It has also been named one of the 12 books for Tolerance and Understanding (2023) by World Literature Today.

A Single Swallow, the English version of Zhang's novel《劳燕》, listed on 2017 Sina best ten books list/2017 新浪年度十大好书, published by Amazon Crossing in October 2020, has immediately caught the media and readers' interest and was reviewed as “a literary work suffused with prodigious and descriptive exposition.” A Single Swallow became Amazon's #1 Kindle bestseller in Chinese literature and WWII historical fiction. The novel also was the winner of AudioFile Earphones Award and was listed with The New York Times Globetrotting 2021.