Elizabeth Comber, who wrote the book that inspired the movie 'Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,' died in Switzerland on Friday.

Dr. Comber, 95 years old, was born in China and wrote under the pen name Han Suyin, mostly on the country's tumultuous changes in the 20th century. Her 1952 novel, 'A Many-Splendored Thing,' was based on her romanticrelationship with British war correspondent Ian Morrison while the two were living in Hong Kong. The book was made into the 1955 Hollywood movie 'Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing,' starring William Holden and Jennifer Jones.

Born in Henan province to a Chinese father and a Belgian mother in 1917, she worked as a nurse during the Japanese occupation of China and studied medicine in Bejiing, Brussels and London, where she qualified as a physician.

In 1938, she married Dang Baoyang, a military officer who fought on the side of China's Nationalist Party and died during the Chinese civil war. In 1952, she married British intelligence officer Leon Comber and became a British citizen. The couple divorced in 1959, and she later married Indian colonel Vincent Ratnaswamy, with whom she settled in Switzerland. He died in 2003.

Though she spent much of her life in India, Singapore and Malaya (present-day Malaysia), Dr. Comber visited China frequently and was close to the country's political elites. Her biographies of Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong have earned her criticism for being an apologist for the Chinese regime at the time.

She incorporated her personal life into her many books. Her 1942 debut novel, 'Destination Chungking,' was based on her experiences during World War II, while her best-seller 'The Mountain Is Young,' released in the U.S. in 1958, is rooted in a trip she took to Nepal. She also wrote a five-part autobiography.

'Suyin' means simple voice in Chinese.

Swiss news agency ATS reported that a funeral service for Dr. Comber will take place on Thursday in Lausanne.

Jason Chow

• mostly [´məustli]   ad.主要地；多半；通常   (初中英语单词)
• romantic [rəu´mæntik]   a.传奇(式)的；浪漫的   (初中英语单词)
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