Han Suyin, author of ‘a Many-Splendored Thing,’ dies at 95

Han Suyin defiantly straddled two worlds decades before multiculturalism became fashionable.

“We must carry ourselves with colossal assurance and say, ‘Look at us, the Eurasians!’” the half-Chinese, half-Belgian physician and author whose career swept across continents and historic upheavals wrote in “A Many-Splendored Thing,” the 1952 novel that made her an international celebrity.

Her strongly autobiographical bestseller about war, cultural identity and love between a half-Chinese physician and a British journalist in Hong Kong spawned the blockbuster 1955 Jennifer Jones-William Holden movie “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing.” Its Oscar-winning theme song became a sentimental standard, and a popular television soap opera based on Han’s story followed.

Han, whose commercial success fueled a prolific career as a writer and unofficial spokeswoman for China during the Cold War years and beyond, died Nov. 2 of natural causes at her home in Lausanne, Switzerland, said her granddaughter, Karen L. Shepard. She was 95.

She wrote more than 30 books over 50 years, including the novel “Till Morning Comes” (1982), a love story set in revolutionary China; and the memoirs “The Crippled Tree” (1965) and “My House Has Two Doors” (1980).

Passionate and polemical, her views often drew sharp criticism. She wrote admiring biographies of Mao Zedong and Zhou En-lai that led some critics to brand her a China apologist. Other detractors called her an opportunist for her changing views. At one time she supported Nationalist Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek against Mao. Later, she endorsed the Cultural Revolution but switched sides when the movement’s cruelties could no longer be denied.