Ling Shuhua (1900-1990) was a Chinese modernist writer and painter. She also translated English literature and self-translated her own stories into English. The daughter of a concubine and a high ranking official, Ling studied at Wuhan university, where she began an affair with Julian Bell, Vanessa Bell’s son, who was teaching English there at the time. Through her connection with Bell, Ling began a correspondence with Virginia Woolf. Ling dedicated her memoir Ancient Melodies to Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, whom she met in England in the 1940s.