Then & now: a many-named writer

Hong Kong and the 1955 film Love is a Many-Splendored Thing are inextricably linked in the public consciousness. But the back-story to A Many-Splendoured Thing, the autobiographical novel that preceded the film, and its enigmatic Sino-Belgian author, Elizabeth Comber (known to the world by her pen-name, Han Suyin), who died this month in Switzerland at the age of 95, remains less well-known.

Born in Henan province to engineer Chou Yentung, Han, known then as Dr Elizabeth Tang, came to Hong Kong in 1948 and worked in obstetrics at Queen Mary Hospital. She lived in Church Guest House, on Upper Albert Road, then in an old house on Conduit Road, lovingly described in her book, with Sheila and "Andy" Anderson, of the long-established medical practice Anderson and Partners.

Shortly after moving here, Tang became involved with Ian Morrison, a Singapore-based correspondent for The Times of London and son of Australian journalist G.E. Morrison, legendarily known as "Morrison of Peking". The Morrison family had many connections in this part of the world: Ian's brother Colin worked for the Hong Kong government; his other brother, Alastair, lived in Sarawak, Borneo, with his wife, Hedda, a talented photographer.

Tang started writing A Many-Splendoured Thing while her romance with Morrison, which she fondly believed remained a secret, was on-going. Classic roman à clef; picking out exactly who was who was an entertaining period pastime. Ian and Colin Morrison's wives were sisters, and no publicly conducted liaison remains quiet for long in Hong Kong, anyway.

In 1950, at the height of their affair, Morrison was killed in Korea.

A Many-Splendoured Thing, and Han's subsequent writings, paved the way for a rich middle ground of Eurasian-themed writing, which until then had only existed on the embarrassed frontiers of either European or Asian letters. Many later Eurasian authors have acknowledged a debt owed to her exploration of their cultural terrain.