Focus Taiwan
Date: 2016/11/22
By: Chang Shu-ling, Sabine Cheng and S.C. Chang
Writer Chen Ying-chen (Photo courtesy of Wenhsun Magazine)
Taipei, Nov. 22 (CNA) Writer Chen Ying-chen (陳映真) died in Beijing on Tuesday after a long-time illness, at the age of 79, his wife said. Friends and Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) offered the family their deepest condolences.
Chen, formerly known as Chen Yung-shan (陳永善), was born in 1937 in Taiwan. His major works include such novels as “My Brother Kang-hsiung,” “The Generals,” “The Comedy of Tang Chien” and “Home Coming.”
In 1985, Chen established “Among the People” magazine (人間雜誌), which heralded the development of “reportage literature” in Taiwan by focusing on the life of common people. He also engaged in a heated debate with writer and scholar Chen Fang-ming (陳芳明, no relation) on the differences between Taiwanese and Chinese literature in 2000.
Critic Yao Yi-wei (姚一葦) once praised Chen Ying-chen for “filling his works with messages of human love” and yet, “beneath that human love is a deep melancholy, an eternal sadness that is as heavy as a mountain.”
Yeh Shih-tao (葉石濤), another critic, once described Chen Ying-chen’s writing as “sensitively reflecting a restless time and a tumultuous society, depicting the hardships endured by multitudes of people, particularly intellectuals, in Taiwan over those 40 years.” [FULL STORY]
