XIA YAN

born Oct. 30, 1900, Hang-chou, Chekiang province, China died Feb. 6, 1995, Peking Wade-Giles romanization Hsia Yen, pseudonym of Shen Tuan-hsien Chinese writer, journalist, and playwright. Xia studied in Japan, and after his return to China in 1927 he joined the Chinese Communist Party. He founded the Art Theatre in 1929, was the first to call for a drama of the proletariat, and became one of the leaders of the League of Leftist Writers when it was formed in 1930. In the same year, he helped found the Left-wing Dramatists League and translated Maksim Gorky's novel Mat (Mother) into Chinese. After 1932 he wrote and adapted several screenplays. In the mid-1930s he wrote several plays, including Sai Chin-hua (1936), the story of a prostitute, and Shanghai wu-yen hsia (1937; Under Shanghai Eaves), one of his most successful works. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Xia worked as a journalist while continuing his creative writing. In 1944 he published Fa-hsi-ssu hsi-chn (The Fascist Bacillus). He held several official positions after the war. His subsequent literary works include a stage play and two screenplays, one based on a story by Lu Hsn and the other on a story by Mao Dun; both were considered to be models of adaptation. In 1964 he was subjected to harsh criticism, and in 1965 he was removed from the office of vice-minister of culture. He spent more than eight years in prison during the Cultural Revolution (196676) and was rehabilitated in 1978.