Iris Chang

Iris Shun-Ru Chang (March 28, 1968 – November 9, 2004) was an American journalist and author of Chinese descent. She achieved prominence with her 1997 bestseller The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II , which detailed mass killings, rapes, and other atrocities by Imperial Japanese Army forces during the 1937–1938 occupation of Nanjing, China, citing a death toll of over 300,000. The book elevated global awareness of the Nanjing Massacre but provoked scholarly debate over its unsubstantiated claims, reliance on eyewitness testimonies without sufficient corroboration, and departures from established historical evidence on casualty figures and event timelines. Chang subsequently campaigned for formal Japanese recognition of such wartime actions and published The Chinese in America: A Narrative History in 2003, examining the experiences of Chinese immigrants. Her career was marked by advocacy for historical accountability, though it contributed to personal strain, culminating in her death by self-inflicted gunshot wound amid diagnosed manic-depressive illness.

Iris Chang was born on March 28, 1968, in Princeton, New Jersey , to immigrant parents Shau-Jin Chang, a theoretical physicist born in 1937 in Suqian , Jiangsu Province, China , and Ying-Ying Chang, a microbiology professor . Shau-Jin Chang's family had fled the Japanese invasion of China during World War II , escaping to Chongqing as infants or young children, an experience that later informed family narratives about wartime atrocities.

The Chang family relocated to Champaign-Urbana, Illinois , where Shau-Jin and Ying-Ying served as professors at the University of Illinois , fostering an intellectually rigorous household. Iris grew up alongside a younger brother in this academic environment, regularly hearing firsthand accounts from her parents of Japanese military actions in China , including narrow escapes from atrocities in Nanjing , stories passed down through generations.

As a child, Chang attended the University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Illinois , a selective institution affiliated with the university, where she skipped a grade and demonstrated early academic precocity, graduating in 1985 at age 17. Her upbringing emphasized discipline and exposure to Chinese history, shaping her worldview amid a stable, education-focused family life.

Iris Chang graduated from University Laboratory High School in Urbana, Illinois , in 1985.

She enrolled at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for undergraduate studies, initially pursuing a major in computer science before transferring to journalism . Chang earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism from the university in 1989. During her time there, she served on the staff of the student newspaper, the Daily Illini .

Following her bachelor's degree , Chang obtained a Master of Arts in the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University .

In recognition of her later contributions to literature and history, Chang received two honorary doctorates: one from the College of Wooster in Ohio and another from California State University, East Bay .

After graduating with a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1989, Iris Chang entered professional journalism as a reporter for the Associated Press , where she worked briefly in a news reporting capacity. She subsequently joined the Chicago Tribune as a reporter, again for a short tenure, contributing to the paper's coverage during the early 1990s . These roles marked her initial foray into full-time daily journalism , building on prior freelance experience gained as an undergraduate stringer for The New York Times , for which she produced over six front-page articles in a single year.

Chang's time at these outlets was characterized by standard reporting duties, though specific assignments or bylines from this period are sparsely documented in available records.