Bette Bao Lord
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Born
| (
1938-11-03
)
November 3, 1938
(age 85)
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Nationality
| American
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Alma mater
| Tufts University
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Occupation(s)
| Novelist, short story writer, civic activist
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Spouse
| Winston Lord
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Children
| 2
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Parent
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Relatives
| Cathy Bao Bean
(sister)
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Bette Bao Lord
(
Chinese
: 包柏?,
Pinyin
: B?o Boyi; born November 3, 1938) is a
Chinese
-born
American
writer and civic activist for human rights and democracy.
Early life
[
edit
]
Lord was born as Bette Bao in
Shanghai
,
China
. With her mother and father, Dora and Sandys Bao, and her younger sister,
Cathy Bao
, she came to the United States at the age of eight when her father, a British-trained engineer, was sent there in 1946 by the
Chinese government
to purchase equipment. In 1949 Bette Bao Lord and her family were stranded in the United States when
Mao Zedong
and his communist rebels won the
civil war in China
.
Bette Bao Lord has written eloquently about her childhood experiences as a Chinese immigrant in the post-World War II United States in her autobiographical children's book
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
. In this book she describes her efforts to learn English and to become accepted by her classmates and how she succeeds with the help of baseball and
Jackie Robinson
.
Lord went to public schools in Brooklyn and New Jersey. She earned a
B.A.
in Political Science at
Tufts University
in 1959 and a master's degree from the
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
in 1960.
Career
[
edit
]
Lord worked as Assistant to the Director at the
East-West Center
in Hawaii, and as program officer at the
Fulbright Program
for professors in Washington, D.C.
[1]
In 1962, as refugees surged into Hong Kong, Bette's mother, Dora Bao, conceived and carried out a plan to get her third daughter, nicknamed Sansan (
Putonghua
,
S?ns?n
, "Threethree")
[2]
(Jean Bao) out of the People's Republic of China. Bette's book,
Eighth Moon
, written with Sansan's help, tells Sansan's story.
[3]
Sansan was a bridesmaid at Bette's wedding to
Winston Lord
, a
Foreign Service Officer
.
[1]
Winston became a principal adviser to
Henry Kissinger
on relations with the
PRC
, and in 1973, he and Bette had a visit with her family in the PRC, a visit which inspired Bette to write
Spring Moon
.
[4]
Spring Moon
(1981), which spans the times from pre-revolutionary China to Nixon's visit, was an international bestseller and
American Book Award
nominee for best first novel.
The Middle Heart
(1996) spans 70 years of modern Chinese history, ending in
1989 with the student-led demonstrations at Tiananmen Square
. Her children's book,
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
, has become a classic used in schools nationwide. Her true stories of Chinese people,
Legacies: A Chinese Mosaic
, was also a bestseller and chosen by
Time
as one of the five best non-fiction works of the year. Ms. Lord's works have received numerous awards and been translated into 15?20 languages.
In addition to chairing
Freedom House
, Ms. Lord has served on many other boards including the
Newseum
,
The Freedom Forum
, the international
U.S. Agency for Global Media
, the
Council on Foreign Relations
, and
WNET
.
Bette Bao Lord is a recipient of seven honorary degrees (including
Notre Dame
,
Tufts
, and
Pepperdine
) and many awards as author, democracy advocate and outstanding immigrant. These include the USIA Award for Outstanding Contributions.
President Clinton
in 1998 presented her the first
Eleanor Roosevelt Award for Human Rights
and hailed her as "someone who writes so powerfully about the past and is working so effectively to shape the future".
Personal life
[
edit
]
Lord is married to
Winston Lord
, former U.S. Ambassador to China. She has two children, Elizabeth Pillsbury Lord and Winston Bao Lord.
[5]
Selected works
[
edit
]
- Eighth Moon: The True Story of a Young Girl’s Life in
Communist China
, by [Bao] Sansan as told to Bette Lord [a story about the escape of Bette's youngest sister], New York: Harper & Row, 1964.
- Spring Moon: A Novel of China
, New York: Harper & Row, 1981,
ISBN
0060148934
.
- In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
, New York: Harper & Row, 1984.
- Legacies: A Chinese Mosaic
, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, distributed by Random House, 1990.
- The Middle Heart
, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, distributed by Random House, 1996.
- Exploring Realistic Fiction (Literature and Writing)
, by Bette Bao Lord, Jayne Pettit, Lael Littke, and Donna Perrone, New York: Scholastic, 1999.
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
[Bao] Sansan and Bette Bao Lord (1964/1966),
Eighth Moon: The True Story of a Young Girl's Life in
Communist China
, reprint, New York: Scholastic, "About the Authors", p. 153.
- ^
"s?n", in
Collins Chinese Concise Dictionary
(2006), New York: HarperCollins.
- ^
[Bao] Sansan and Bette Bao Lord (1964/1966),
Eighth Moon: The True Story of a Young Girl's Life in Communist China
, reprint, New York: Scholastic, Afterword, p. 149.
- ^
Bette Bao Lord (1981/1982),
Spring Moon
, reprint, New York: Avon, p. [465].
- ^
"imdb.com Lisa Lord"
.
IMDb
. Retrieved
Nov 23,
2016
.
- ^
"Legacies: A Chinese Mosaic"
.
C-SPAN
. May 27, 1990
. Retrieved
March 26,
2017
.
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Mary Virginia Fox (1993),
Bette Bao Lord: Novelist and Chinese Voice for Change
, Chicago: Children's Press.
External links
[
edit
]
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International
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National
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Other
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