DESPITE, OR PERHAPS because of, the ban on her writing, Dai Qing, 63, is China's best-known female journalist. Dai's own story, which seesaws between farce and tragedy, must rival any she has covered.
Her father - a friend of Chen Duxiu, a one-time leader of the Chinese Communist Party in its formative years - was executed during the Japanese occupation. Her mother was tortured by the Japanese, but survived.
It was Dai's mother who persuaded her to enrol in the Harbin Military Engineering College in 1960. Despite having no interest in weapons, Dai applied herself to please her mother, who - Dai says with a sarcastic tone - was impressed by the institution's 'high technology'.
After graduating in 1966, Dai worked at a secret plant specialising in intercontinental nuclear missiles. She detested it, she says. 'I don't like war. I hate war.'
Before the year ended, the Cultural Revolution interrupted her work at the plant. Dai's growing disillusion with Chinese society sharpened acutely when her mother was subjected to torture again - this time by the Red Guards, who wanted to know how she had survived the Japanese occupation when her husband hadn't.
Blocking out the horror, Dai enlisted in a foreign language college and studied English, hoping to become a translator of children's books. 'That was my dream,' she says. But the dream remained just that. As a result, Dai had plenty of spare time, so she wrote a short story, called Longing For. It revolved around a couple who sacrifice their lives for country and party, but only really long to be together.
