| Xiong Dun | |
| Birth Name: | Xiang Yao |
| Birth Date: | 19 October 1982 |
| Birth Place: | Lishui, China |
| Nationality: | Chinese |
| Occupation: | Cartoonist, memoirist |
Xiong Dun (熊頓) (19 October 1982 — 16 November 2012) was the pen-name of Xiang Yao (項瑤), a Chinese cartoonist, who documented her own experience with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in her web comic Go to the Devil, Mr. Tumor. Her story was later adapted into a Chinese film, Go Away Mr. Tumor (Gun dan ba! Zhong liu jun) (2015).
Xiang Yao was from Lishui in Zhejiang province.[1]
Xiang Yao worked as an illustrator for Beijing advertising company, while creating comics using the name Xiong Dun,[2] with titles like A Bachelorette's Diary, Superwoman on Diet, Stories in City,[3] and Maturing into Womanhood. She had six books of her cartoons published.[4] Her style was compared to that of Japanese cartoonist .[5]
Xiong Dun began to experience symptoms that were diagnosed as Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in August 2011. She blamed her own long hours for her turn of health, saying "I hope my illness will sound alarm bells to those workaholics like me."[6] Despite the grim subject, the cartoon published in book form as Go to the Devil, Mr. Tumor (2013)[7] was upbeat in tone, with humorous illustrations and observations about her cancer and treatments.
Xiong Dun died in November 2012, aged 30. "Death is only a result," she assured her fans. "How you live is the most important."[8] A film based on her life and work, Go Away Mr. Tumor, directed by Han Yan and starring Bai Baihe and Daniel Wu, was released in China in 2015,[9] and was considered a box-office success.[10] Wang Yichuan described it as an example of the "sorrow from joy" theme common in recent Chinese films.[11]