YU TA-FU

born 1896, Fu-yang, Chekiang Province, China died September 1945, Sumatra, Dutch East Indies Pinyin Yu Dafu popular short-story writer of the 1920s in China, one of the founding members of the Creation Society, which was devoted to the promotion of modern literature. Y Ta-fu received his higher education in Japan, where he met other young Chinese writers, with whom he founded the Creation Society (Ch'ang-tsao she) in 1921. His first collection of short stories, Ch'en-lun (1921; Sinking), was written in vernacular Chinese, as advocated by the new writers. Ch'en-lun became a popular success in China because of its frank treatment of sex; when Y returned to his country in 1922, he found himself a literary celebrity. Y continued his work with the Creation Society and edited or contributed to literary journals. He also continued to write the same kinds of short stories. But in 1923, after suffering tuberculosis, he abruptly changed his major theme from one of self-preoccupation to one of concern with the state of the masses. In 1926, after disagreeing with the Communist members of the Creation Society, Y attempted to reorganize the group but was forced to resign. Y's first novel appeared in 1928 and was only moderately successful; his second followed four years later. In 1935 his last and major work of fiction, Ch'u-pen (Flight), was published. During the Sino-Japanese War, Y wrote anti-Japanese propaganda from Hangchow and Singapore. When that Malay city fell to the Japanese in 1942, he fled to Sumatra, only to be executed by Japanese military police there shortly before the end of the war. Of Y's many works, the most popular was Jih-chi chiu-chung (1927; Nine Diaries), an account of his affair with the young left-wing writer Wang Ying-hsia; the book broke all previous sales records in China. The critics' favourite is probably Kuo-ch' (1927; The Past), praised for its psychological depth.