Chu Hsi-ning

Who was Chu Hsi-ning?

Chu Hsi-ning was born in Linqu, Shandong. In 1945, he entered an art college in Hangzhou, but dropped out to join the nationalist army in the struggle against the communists. He reached the rank of colonel. He was one of the soldiers who accompanied Chiang Kai-shek to Taiwan in 1949. He came to prominence as a writer in the 1950s and remained productive until his death.

He can be grouped with anti-communist writers or the soldier writers. His fiction displays an interest in the impact of modernity on ordinary people and in the clash of social forces. These are concerns he inherited from the May Fourth Movement and the writers of the 1930s. However, Chu Hsi-ning's, unlike that of many Chinese writers of the 1930s, was not leftist. In fact, he is conservative. His stories reinforce traditional communal values and a morally Christian worldview.

He is the father of writers Chu Tien-wen and Chu Tien-hsin, together with whom he participated in the Three-Three series of publications in the late 1970s. The "threes" stand for the Three Principles of the People and for the Christian trinity.

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