Chang was young, and her writing was very promising. But she was also, the death-notices point out, deeply depressed. n 1997 , Chang published the bestselling "The Rape of Nan-king," which described the rape, torture and killing of hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers during the 1930s. "The Chinese in America," published last year, is a history of Chinese immigrants and their descendants in the United States. Chang suffered a breakdown during researching for her fourth book about U.S. soldiers who fought the Japanese in the Philippines during World War II. Chang continued to suffer from depression after she was released from the hospital. In a note to her family, she asked to be remembered as the person she was before she became ill - "engaged with life, committed to her causes, her writing and her family."