League of Left-Wing Writers
Ding Ling was influenced by progressive teachers at the People's Girls School, and by her association with modern writers such as Shen Congwen and the left-wing poet Hu Yepin, whom she married in 1925. She began writing stories around this time, most famously "Miss Sophia's Diary", published in 1927, in which a young woman describes her unhappiness with her life and confused romantic and sexual feelings. "Miss Sophia's Diary" highlights Ding Ling's close association and belief in the New Woman movement which was occurring in China during the 1920's. In 1931, Hu Yepin was executed in Shanghai by the Kuomintang government for his association with the Communists. In March 1932 she joined the Chinese Communist Party, and almost all of her fiction after this time was in support of its goals. She was active in the League of Left-Wing Writers.