China's first blind teenage author,a 13-year-old girl in Shanghai,has recently published a new book,her second since her collection of fairy tales was published last year.
"A Blind Girl's Monologue" collects together over 70 prose works,features,fairy tales and short stories written by Yuan Liang,who is studying at a local school for blind children.
Yuan suffered from a retinal tumor when she was three,and lost her sight soon after.This did not depress her but rather stimulated her to study harder.
She has learned to swim, play the piano,knit,and do other things that sighted children are able to.
When she was very young,Yuan liked to listen to fairly tales on the radio,inspiring her to create a number of her own pieces,many of which have been published in children's newspapers and magazines nationwide.
Yuan is now a member of a national association for teenage authors and is a freelance writer for the Teenagers'News,a leading youth newspaper in China.
Well known writer Feng Yingzi has written the foreword to the collection.
(eastday.com December 29, 2001)
