Wang Xiyan 1914-1999

Modern writer from Zhejiang province. As a young man, Wang was particularly influenced by the writng of Chekov. During the 1930s, he participated in the activites of the Left-wing League of Writers. In 1936, he attracted attention in literary circles with his short-story Shu [First light]. After the War of Resistance against Japan, he worked in the Chinese Department of various universities. From that time up until 1949, he published over ten collections of short-stories and six novels. He became a leading figure in the Shanghai literary scene after 1949, but was denounced as a major counter-revolutionary at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. In the twenty years between his rehabilitation and his dealth, he wrote a large number of essays as well as two memoirs, one of them recounting his experience of the Cultural Revolution.

         close