“這是我真正不得不寫的一本書。我寫，是齣自義憤。即使拿不到一分錢，我也不在乎。讓世界知道1937年在南京發生瞭什麼事，對我來講，這纔是重要的。”

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　——張純如

作者照片：

張純如，在新澤西州普林斯頓齣生，在伊利諾州長大。1989年從伊利諾大學畢業後，曾在美聯社和芝加哥論壇報當記者，後來從約翰·霍普金斯大學獲得寫作學位，並開始全職寫作和演說。

張純如齣身書香門第，祖父是抗日國軍將領張鐵軍，後曾為颱灣中華日報總主筆。其父當年是颱大物理係“狀元”，其專著《量子場論》在美國理論物理學術界頗有影響。張純如的母親一直從事生物化學的研究工作。

張純如曾榮膺麥剋阿瑟基金會“和平與國際閤作計劃”奬、美國華人團體“年度女性”稱號，並且獲得美國“國傢科學基金會”、“太平洋文化基金會”及“哈利·杜爾門圖書館”贊助。張純如曾成為世界最著名的文摘雜誌《讀者文摘》的封麵人物，受到許多電視節目邀請，包括著名新聞訪談節目《夜綫》(Nightline)和《吉姆萊赫新聞時間》(NewsHour With Jim Lehrer)，也為多傢齣版物(包括《紐約時報》和《新聞周刊》)寫稿。她與NBA體育明星“東方小巨人”姚明、著名鋼琴傢郎朗被譽為當下美國最引人矚目的三位華人青年。

1997年，張純如的《南京大屠殺：被二戰遺忘的浩劫》在美國齣版。與南京大屠殺有關的研討會也因此在美國哈佛及斯坦福等大學舉行，美國新聞媒介都大幅報道瞭南京大屠殺。張純如自己也曾到紐約等地作關於這段曆史的演講。《南京大屠殺》是首部全麵記錄當年日軍血洗南京城暴行的英文著作，曾連續5個月被列為《紐約時報》書評的最佳暢銷書，引起英語世界對二次大戰時日本在中國實施暴行的關注。1998年4月，東方齣版社翻譯的20萬字《南京大屠殺：被二戰遺忘的浩劫》中譯本在北京齣版。

2004年11月9日，張純如突然在美國加州自己的轎車內用手槍自殺身亡。有消息推測，年僅36歲的她可能因患抑鬱癥自殺。

在她的網上祭奠堂的挽聯中這樣寫道：

曆經韆辛示倭鬼惡昭告世界中華第一人，

自古有死太息青雲一瞬如君搖落更堪悲。

Publisher Comments :

In December 1937, the Japanese army swept into the ancient city of Nanking. Within weeks, more than 300,000 Chinese civilians were systematically raped, tortured, and murdered — a death toll exceeding that of the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Using extensive interviews with survivors and newly discovered documents, Iris Chang has written what will surely be the definitive history of this horrifying episode.

The Rape of Nanking tells the story from three perspectives: of the Japanese soldiers who performed it, of the Chinese civilians who endured it, and of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved almost 300,000 Chinese. Among these was the Nazi John Rabe, an unlikely hero whom Chang calls the "Oskar Schindler of China" and who worked tirelessly to protect the innocent and publicize the horror. More than just narrating the details of an orgy of violence, The Rape of Nanking analyzes the militaristic culture that fostered in the Japanese soldiers a total disregard for human life. Finally, it tells the appalling story: about how the advent of the Cold War led to a concerted effort on the part of the West and even the Chinese to stifle open discussion of this atrocity. Indeed, Chang characterizes this conspiracy of silence, that persists to this day, as "a second rape".

Amazon.com

China has endured much hardship in its history, as Iris Chang shows in her ably researched The Rape of Nanking, a book that recounts the horrible events in that eastern Chinese city under Japanese occupation in the late 1930s. Nanking, she writes, served as a kind of laboratory in which Japanese soldiers were taught to slaughter unarmed, unresisting civilians, as they would later do throughout Asia. Likening their victims to insects and animals, the Japanese commanders orchestrated a campaign in which several hundred thousand--no one is sure just how many--Chinese soldiers and noncombatants alike were killed. Chang turns up an unlikely hero in German businessman John Rabe, a devoted member of the Nazi party who importuned Adolf Hitler to intervene and stop the slaughter, and who personally saved the lives of countless residents of Nanking. She also suggests that the Japanese government pay reparations and apologize for its army's horrific acts of 60 years ago.

From School Library Journal

The events in this book are horribly off-putting, which, paradoxically, is why they must be remembered. Chang tells of the Sino-Japanese War atrocities perpetrated by the invading Japanese army in Nanking in December 1937, in which roughly 350,000 soldiers and civilians were slaughtered in an eight-week period, many of them having been raped and/or tortured first. Not only are readers given many of the gory details?with pictures?but they are also told of the heroism of some members of a small foreign contingent, particularly of a Nazi businessman who resided in China for 30 years. The story of his bravery lends the ironic touch of someone with evil credentials doing good. Once the author finishes with the atrocities, she proceeds with the equally absorbing and much easier-to-take story of what happened to the Nazi businessman when he returned to Germany and the war ended. This by itself is material for a movie. The author tells why the Japanese government not only allowed the atrocities to occur but also refused, and continues to refuse, to acknowledge that they happened. She is quite evenhanded in reminding readers that every culture has some episode like this in its history; what makes this one important is the number of people killed and tortured, the sadism, and the ongoing Japanese denial of responsibility. Mature readers will look beyond the sensational acts of cruelty to ponder the horror of man's inhumanity to man and the examples of heroism in the midst of savagery.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Judy McAloon, Potomac Library, Prince William County, VA

From Library Journal

Even though the Japanese government still refuses to acknowledge the massacre of at least 250,000 Chinese civilians by invading Japanese troops in 1937, freelance writer Chang (the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Associated Press) has exposed in detail the full, terrible account of what happened to the war-torn capital of Nanking. Chang, whose grandparents survived the brutality, first establishes Japan's social hierarchy by martial competition, then shows how the city of Nanking fell, the six weeks of horror following, and the Nanking safety zone created by Americans and Europeans. The book goes on to depict the city's occupation, the judgment day for Japanese war criminals, the cover-up perpetrated by Japanese textbooks, and Japan's self-imposed censorship. The unseen illustrations will certainly complement the vivid description of one of the most horrible massacres of all. This unique, deeply researched book, with its firsthand account, is an excellent choice for larger public libraries and the East Asia collections of academic libraries.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Steven Lin, American Samoa Community Coll. Lib.

From AudioFile

Few know the details of the Japanese invasion of Nanking during WWII. Once a capital city of China, it became a scene of holocaust, rivaling any of Europe's in brutality and numbers. This is not history for the squeamish. Chang unfolds episodes with painstaking detail. She documents facts, reactions and rebuttals and includes a psycho-sociological analysis of the Japanese character to explain (if not excuse) their excesses. With a dry voice, Fields keeps her narrative from overreaction, using a finely tuned ear for inflection to emphasize the worst horrors. This is a real accomplishment as it would be hard NOT to express indignation. Her intelligent performance makes this a remarkable and compelling experience. S.B.S.

From Kirkus Reviews

Billing itself as the first English-language history devoted to the Japanese Army's 1937 massacre in China's capital, this slight account will by no means be the last word. Repeated references to Schindler's List point to the problem with this overdigested version of the past: It reads like a treatment for a probably inevitable cinema version of the hideous incident. Its economical, blandly shocking anecdotes of crimes against humanity and its cardboard heroes suggest scenes ready-made for screenwritten history. Thus, while rigorous in its moral earnestness, the book is inadequate as a history. After a minimal background chapter on Japanese militarism, Chang, a freelance journalist, describes the Japanese assault on Nanking. The specifics are deeply horrific: Over a period of several months Japanese soldiers killed approximately a quarter of a million Chinese, almost all of them noncombatants, including the elderly, women, and children. But the potential ingredients of a skillfully woven narrative are separated here into lifeless clumps of facts--catalogues of atrocities by kind; tiny summaries of topics of significant contextual interest, like foreign intelligence concerning the massacre; and probably gripping oral recollections flattened into clunky prose (``of the hundreds of people killed that day . . . Tang was the only survivor''). Chang tells only as much as one needs to know to indignantly draw the familiar lessons for humanity--``the frightening ease with which the mind can accept genocide, turning us all into passive spectators to the unthinkable.'' What's needed is to vivify such truths with intense historical reality. Chang fails because he rushes to simplify complex events and to universalize what happened at the expense of a careful, comprehensive appreciation of a world violently destroyed. (photos, not seen) (First serial to Newsweek)

Frederic Wakeman, Director of the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Iris Chang's RAPE OF NANKING is an utterly compelling book. The descriptions of the atrocities raise fundamental questions not only about imperial Japanese militarism but the psychology of the torturers, rapists and murderers. Many Japanese have denied that these events ever took place, substituting amnesia for guilt, but Iris Chang's heartbreaking account will make such evasion impossible in the future for all but the most diehard right-wing Japanese extremists.

About Author

Iris Chang, a full time author living in California, heard stories about the Rape of Nanking from her parents, who survived years of war and revolution before finding a serene home as professors in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. A journalism graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana, she worked briefly as a reporter in Chicago before winning a graduate fellowship to the writing seminars program at The Johns Hopkins University. Her first book, Thread of the Silkworm (the story of Tsien-Hsue-shen, father of the People's Republic of China's missile program) received worldwide critical acclaim. She is the recipient of the John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation's Program on Peace and International Cooperation award, as well as major grants from the National Science Foundation, the Pacific Cultural Foundation, and the Harry Truman Library. She is 30 years old.

Book Dimension :

Height (cm) 19.8 　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Width (cm) 12.8

張純如（Iris Chang），1989年畢業於伊利諾伊大學厄巴納•香檳分校，獲新聞學學士學位。畢業後在芝加哥度過瞭短暫的記者生涯，之後在約翰•霍普金斯大學獲寫作碩士學位。作為美國著名的年輕曆史學傢之一，張純如曾獲得眾多榮譽，包括麥剋阿瑟基金會和平與國際閤作項目奬、華裔美國人組織年度女性奬、伍斯特學院名譽博士、加州州立大學東灣分校名譽博士等。1991年，張純如與布雷特•道格拉斯（Brett Douglas）結婚，並育有一子。

她的作品刊登在《新聞周刊》、《紐約時報》、《洛杉磯時報》等多傢齣版物上，此外，她還接受眾多電視和廣播節目的采訪，並發錶過眾多演講。除瞭《南京大屠殺》之外，張純如還有《蠶絲》（Thread of the Silkworm）和《美國華人》（The Chinese in America）兩部著作問世。

2004年11月9日，張純如在美國加利福尼亞州自己的轎車內開槍自殺。