Lust, Caution is a novella by the Chinese writer Eileen Chang, first published in 1979. It is set in Shanghai and Hong Kong during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Reportedly, the short story "took Chang more than two decades to complete". The 2007 film of the same name by renowned Taiwanese director Ang Lee was an adaptation of this novel. The story focuses on the plight of Wang Chia-chih and her involvement in a plot to assassinate Mr. Yee, who is a co-collaborator of a Chinese collaborator with the invading Japanese force. The novella was allegedly based on a true story of the wartime spy Zheng Pingru. According to David Der-wei Wang, a professor of Chinese Literature at Harvard University, Lust, Caution “drew controversy thanks to a biographical subtext: it seems to project Chang's own wartime experience as a collaborator's lover”.
First English edition
Executed Chinese spy Zheng Pingru, generally believed to be the prototype for Wang Chia-chih
Author Eileen Chang
Eileen Chang (traditional Chinese: 張愛玲; simplified Chinese: 张爱玲; pinyin: Zhāng Àilíng; Wade–Giles: Chang1 Ai4-ling2;September 30, 1920 – September 8, 1995), also known as Chang Ai-ling or Zhang Ailing, or by her pen name Liang Jing (梁京), was a Chinese-born American essayist, novelist, and screenwriter.
Chang in British Hong Kong in 1954
The gate of Eddington House in Shanghai, Eileen Chang lived here in 1942. (Picture taken in June 2013)