User:Carrokid/Shelley Smith Mydans

Shelley Smith Mydans(May 20, 1915-March 7, 2002) was an American novelist,journalist, and commentator. She and her husband,

Carl Mydans, were famous for being prisoners of wars during WWII.

Biography
Shelley Smith Mydans was born in Palto Alto, California, the daughter of a professor of journalism at Stanford University. In 1938 Shelley met Carl Mydans, a Life photographer, and they were married in 1938. In 1939 they moved to France and stayed until it fell to the Germans, thereafter they were sent to Chongqing, China, to report on the Sino-Japanese war, and afterwards to the Western Pacific. They eventually went on to stay in the Philippines, being based in Manila and were eventually taken prisoner by the invading Japanese. They spent 21 months in Japanese captivity, but were eventually returned in a prisoner exchange. The two went on to live in the Philippines, Tokyo, and eventually New York. Shelley Smith Mydans and Carl Mydans gave birth to two children, Shelley and Seth.

Career
After attending Stanford, she worked for The Literary Digest for a brief period of time, and then joined the staff of Life magazine as a researcher-reporter. In 1939 she and her husband went abroad, where they reported on the Sino-Japanese war, and were eventually captured in the Philippines. In 1945, Shelley wrote her first book "The Open City," published in 1945, which was based on the experiences of Americans captured by the Japanese. At the end of the war she moved to new York where she worked as a commentator for a Time Inc. radio news program while also simultaneously writing for Time and Life. Her other books were Thomas, a novel based on the life of Thomas à Becket; The Vermilion Bridge, a novel about eighth-century Japan; and The Violent Peace, a report on wars, insurgency and terrorism since World War II, which she wrote with Mr. Mydans.