When she was one year old, she suffered poliomyelitis, which caused paralysis of both legs and right arm.
[4] She read English literature at Sogang University and finished her undergraduate and graduate studies in 1975 and 1977.
She received a doctoral degree from State University of New York at Albany in 1985 with the thesis titled Journeys between Real and the Ideal.
Since 1985, Chang had worked as a professor at the department of English literature, Sogang University.
After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001, Chang had two surgeries and chemotherapy to remove the tumour.