Chinese Poet Yu Guangzhong Dies in Taiwan

Chinese poet, critic, and translator Yu Guangzhong has died at the age of 89 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, reports the New York Times. "Mr. Yu was a young college student in mainland China when his family joined the wave of Nationalists who fled to Taiwan after they were defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communists in the Chinese Civil War in 1949." More:

Mr. Yu was prolific, publishing more than 50 books of poetry, prose, criticism and translations over seven decades. He traveled frequently. Besides Hong Kong, he wrote and taught in Europe, the United States and, after the travel ban was lifted in 1987, mainland China.

“Mainland China is like my mother, Taiwan is a wife, Hong Kong is a lover, and Europe is a mistress,” he wrote in a 1998 essay titled “From Mother to an Affair.”

Though Mr. Yu was unequivocally celebrated in the mainland, his legacy in Taiwan was at times the subject of debate.

In the 1970s, Taiwan — one of the four so-called Asian Tigers — was undergoing rapid industrialization and social transformation. In response, local writers began to take up what they saw as the growing marginalization of farmers and underprivileged classes.

Mr. Yu was alarmed by what he viewed as rising leftist sentiment at home. So in 1977, with Cold War-era tensions still high, he ignited a debate in Taiwanese literary circles with an essay called “The Wolves Are Here,” in which he accused several writers of supporting proletarian values, like those espoused in Communist China.

At a time when even a hint of Communist sympathies could invite harsh punishment and a prison sentence in Taiwan, it was a damning charge. Many criticized Mr. Yu of collaborating with the Nationalist government to suppress leftist writers.

Many years later, Mr. Yu denied the accusations. “I have never joined any political party,” he wrote in 2004.

At the same time, he also expressed regret for writing the 1977 “Wolves” essay. “My emotions were out of control,” he explained. “I was still in shock about the Cultural Revolution. I was feeling depressed and especially sensitive to any left-leaning remarks.

Read the full obituary at the NYT.