Lesbian Love Story in 1940s London: Han Suyin' s Winter Love
- A Diary for Strangers
- Aug 3
- 4 min read
Updated: Aug 4
Han Suyin(née Elizabeth Kuanghu Chow, later Comber 1958), National Portrait Gallery, London
Han Suyin (韩素音) was born in Henan in 1917 to a Chinese father and a Belgian mother. Her father met her mother in Belgium and later admitted that he had misled her about the situation in China in order to persuade her to return with him.
"Because of the happiness I experienced in my childhood, I have wronged my wife.When I first met her, the China I spoke of was the one seen on Delft porcelain: palaces, bridges, silk, gardens, majestic rivers and mountains, obedient servants, kind relatives and friendly neighbors. I only introduced her to the well-off, comfortable life of my own family—I believed that was China.
She had read popular novels about China at the time, where the cruel and foolish Empress Dowager Cixi was portrayed as a kind and gentle old lady, elegantly sipping tea with the wives of British, French, and American diplomats. China, in her eyes, was an exotic, beautiful country steeped in ancient traditions. Europeans, with their impatient nature, longed for China's order, calm, and solemn dignity—but this was their fantasy. It never existed. They deceived themselves. And I helped them deceive Marguerite."
The quoted paragraph is from Han Suyin’s autobiography The Crippled Tree, in which she recounts the story in her father’s voice. She portrays, in a sensual and romantic tone, how her father met her mother—a young man from the East encountering a young woman from the West:
"Marguerite was standing there, looking at the cheese.I was looking at her.And I fell in love.
I believe it was love—because from that moment on, I could eat cheese, even enjoy it."
It seems Han Suyin was destined to write love stories—a talent later confirmed by her lesbian love novel The Winter Love. But before we get to that, we must begin with her childhood.
She spent her early years in Beijing and attended Bridgman Girls’ School, the first Christian girls' school in the city. Founded by the American missionary Eliza Jane Gillett Bridgman, the academy played a significant role in the early women’s liberation movement in China.
Han Suyin's first marriage was to a Chinese military officer with a violent temper, who frequently subjected her to domestic abuse. In 1944, she followed him to London due to a job transfer. While her husband worked, Han Suyin studied medicine in the city. To escape his abuse, she once took refuge in the home of a female friend. Shockingly, her husband threatened to accuse this friend of “seducing his wife into homosexuality.”
Fortunately, in 1947, this husband was killed during the Chinese Civil War.
Perhaps his accusation wasn’t entirely baseless. No one knows exactly whom Han Suyin met at medical school in London between 1944 and 1947, but that girl must have left a profound impact. Eighteen years later, during Han Suyin's third marriage, she still vividly remembered. The all-female medical college Han Suyin attended became the setting for her novel Winter Love. In her novel, the character “Red” falls in love with her classmate “Mara” at a medical school in London in 1940s. Mara is a married woman, and the two engage in a passionate and conflicted relationship.
The fate of Winter Love was unfortunate. Due to the nature of its content, published in 1960s London—well before the Stonewall riots—it was not well received.
In its first edition I found in the library, Winter Love was bundled with another story by Han Suyin in a two-story collection. The preface devoted about 80% of its content to the first story, which—unsurprisingly—was a heterosexual romance. Winter Love was given only a single paragraph, written in a tone more akin to a content warning than a literary introduction. It noted that the story had been written by a former medical student, subtly implying that Han's portrayal of lesbian love stemmed from clinical curiosity. It added, somewhat apologetically, that good writers like Han Suyin possess the inclusivity and compassion to portray all kinds of love.
It wasn’t until 1994 that the story was reprinted as part of a new series titled Lesbian Landmarks, alongside The Story of the Girl Manuela—the original story behind the German lesbian classic film Mädchen in Uniform.
The story of Winter Love, in some ways, reads like an alternative version of Carol: a young lesbian falls in love with a beautiful, married woman in winter. There’s a particularly striking scene where Red goes to Mara’s flat and sits on her bed, wondering whether Mara’s husband had ever sat there too—an echo of the moment when Therese visits Carol’s home and finds herself wondering about her husband.
Moreover, the narrative is filled with detailed references to real streets and locations in London, which made me suspect that the story may have been drawn from a real episode in Han Suyin’s own life.
This book has not yet been translated into Chinese and remains unknown to its Chinese readers.
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