Huo Da


Huo Da is a Chinese female writer of Hui ethnicity. She also is a film editor. Her Hui name is Fa Tumai. One of her works, The Muslim's Funeral won the Mao Dun Literature Prize in 1991. It has been translated into English, French, Arabic and Urdu.
Her most famous novel, and the only one to be translated into English, was the 1988 Muslim Funeral, which chronicled the history of three generations of a family of Muslim jade carvers in Beijing; it provoked controversy for its positive attitude towards market entrepreneurialism and its suggestion that the Han in Beijing negatively stereotype the Hui for their poverty and lack of education, while they do not have the same attitude towards the Manchu.

Biography

Huo Da was born into a family of scholars on 26 November 1945 in Beijing. She graduated from Beijing Construction College in 1966. And then she engaged in translation work for many years. In 1976, she became a film editor of Beijing Film Studio. In 1978, she was transferred into Beijing television art center and started her professional writing career.

Works