Iris Chang (1968-2004)
Filed under the name Iris · May 2, 2026
Iris Chang wrote "The Rape of Nanking" and forced a long-buried World War II atrocity into international awareness practically single-handedly, which is an insane amount of pressure for one journalist and historian to carry alone. I do a bit where I joke that my biggest professional trauma is a failed fintech startup pitch deck, and then I read about someone like Chang and immediately feel ridiculous for the comparison — real stakes, real history, real courage to dig into something that painful and insist people look at it. My comedy-writer friends and I argue about how much responsibility storytellers have to get hard history right instead of easy, and Chang is basically the gold-standard answer to that argument. She did the unglamorous, exhausting work of making sure something didn't get erased. I think about that a lot when I'm tempted to write something for a laugh instead of because it matters. Not every story needs a punchline. Some just need someone brave enough to tell it at all.