Xiao Hong 萧红

Xiao Hong or Hsiao Hung (2 June 1911 – 22 January 1942) was a Chinese writer. Her given name was Zhang Naiying (張廼瑩); she also used the pen name Qiao Yin.

Xiao Hong was born in Hulan County, Heilongjiang Province, on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival to a landowning family. Her mother died when she was young. She attended a girls school in Harbin in 1927, where she encountered the progressive ideas of the May Fourth movement as well as Chinese and foreign literature. In 1930 she ran away to Beijing to avoid a planned marriage, though was eventually followed by her fiance Wang Dianjia. In 1932, after she became pregnant her fiance abandoned her at a hotel in Harbin. She narrowly avoided being sold to a brothel by the hotel's owner by scraping together over six hundred yuan expenses.