Shan Sa

Shan Sa, born Yan Ni, is a poet and novelist of Chinese origin who writes in French, a language she adopted after settling in Paris. She was born in Beijing on 26 October 1972 into a family of scholars, and her career spans two languages and two cultures, which has made her one of the best-known francophone literary voices of her generation.

She began writing poetry in Chinese as a child. According to the sources, she published a first collection at the age of eight and won a national children's poetry contest, an event that caused public controversy. After finishing secondary school in Beijing, she left for France in 1990 on a French government grant, shortly after the Tiananmen events, which influenced her decision. She settled in Paris with her father, a Sorbonne professor, and completed her philosophy studies in 1994. From 1994 to 1996 she worked as secretary to the painter Balthus.

Her first novel in French, The Gate of Celestial Peace, received the Prix Goncourt for a first novel in 1998. Her breakthrough came in 2001 with The Girl Who Played Go, which was translated into many languages. Her work blends the personal and the historical, looking closely at memory, China and exile, and also includes poetry and painting; she has exhibited her paintings in Paris, New York and Shanghai. Her legacy lies largely in bringing a Chinese perspective into French literature, written from within the language itself.