Su's father held a minor official position, first under the Qing dynasty and then the Republic of China.

During the May Fourth Movement, she penned an essay Green Skies and a novel Thorny Heart which won critical acclaim.

However, Su was not able to find materials for her research in Hong Kong, so she left for Europe a year later, still supported by the Catholic Church.

However, Su found that French sinology was irrelevant to her scholarship, and left France after only two years.

[2] Around the period she shifted her research concentration on ancient texts, such as those written by Qu Yuan and of Greek and Roman mythology.