Xie Bingying was a Chinese soldier

Soldier

A soldier is a member of the land component of national armed forces; whereas a soldier hired for service in a foreign army would be termed a mercenary...

 and writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

 born in Loudi, Hunan

Loudi

Loudi is a prefecture-level city located in central Hunan province, China. It is situated about 110km south west of the provincial capital of Changsha and is considered a small to medium size city within the province...

.

Xie was one of the first female soldiers in modern history, and participated in the Northern Expedition. Her literary reputation started with her military diaries. She was arrested in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 for resistance activities in 1935. In 1948 she moved to Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

 to escape the coming communist rule. In 1974 she emigrated to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Main works

• Girl Rebel: the autobiography of Hsieh Pingying, with extracts from her new war diaries (Adet and Anor Lin), Da Capo Press, New York, 1940
• Autobiography of a Chinese Girl: a genuine autobiography (Tsui Chi), G. Allen & Unwin, London, 1943
• A Woman Soldier's Story: The Autobiography of Xie Bingying,translated by Lily Chia Brissman and Barry Brissman, Columbia University Press, New York, 2001.