I suppose it's just a matter of statistics. Everyday, someone famous or well-known dies. While the media gorges itself on the death of Yasser Arafat and its implications, it might be easy to overlook the passing of Chinese American author Iris Chang. Chang was found dead, an apparent suicide. She was 36.

Chang's landmark 1997 book, "The Rape of Nanking" was the first comprehensive book about Japanese atrocities committed in Nanjing during the late 1930's.

The book was controversial, to say the least. For some, one of the blackest episodes of human history, known mostly to the Chinese, finally saw the light of day. Others, mostly on the Japanese right, criticized it as a book with an agenda, a patent manipulation of historical facts. Chang had just finished a book on the history of Chinese in America, unearthing facts and stories that even someone like myself, born and raised in the United States, was unaware of. To take such things out of the realm of the esoteric and into the realm of the readable was Chang's talent. But let's be upfront about one thing, Chang did have an agenda. A work of history may not change government policy tomorrow, but it does "raise consciousness," and for that it is invaluable.

I read the "The Rape of Nanking" in 1998. I reacted much as I imagine many Chinese people would, reduced to tears by the cruelties described in this book. I had to put it down for a couple of hours or days before resuming reading.

At the time, there was a Japanese exchange student I often talked with. I remember putting down the book and wiping my eyes as he'd walk in, and talked with him the way we always did. To my relief, I didn't suddenly hate him, or feel any impulse to boycott Japanese goods. I often wonder if we were granted historical omniscience, and could know every unspeakable act of evil that had ever occurred, whether we'd be doomed to hating each other for the rest of eternity.

Luckily there is time, and distance, to insulate most of us from the darker moments of human history, but insulation often metamorphoses into ignorance. That's why we read Iris Chang, because dispelling ignorance is a small but potent gift, and in receiving it, we the living, still blindly wading through the stream of history, guided by our 24-hour cable news and Google news, do achieve small moments of grace, where things, however briefly, do make sense.

Arafat's life is history, Chang's is not. How Arafat will go down in history is a battle that will be fought for generations to come, but what of Chang, who only lived half as long? It seems at least easier to grasp what a life like hers meant, both to those close to her and to her readers, which makes it even harder to fathom why the most blessed among us are often the most burdened, and why they choose to leave us despite how badly the world is in need of their talents and contributions.

This, I am afraid, will never make any sense.