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Qian Defu (simplified Chinese: 钱德富; traditional Chinese: 錢德富; pinyin: Qián Défù, 6 February 1900 – 17 June 1977), also known by the pen names A Ying (阿英) and Qian Xingcun (钱杏邨), was a Chinese critic and screenwriter.

Biography

A Ying was born on 6 February 1900 in Anhui. He found work delivering the post, but later attended the Shanghai College of Agriculture. In 1926, A Ying joined the Chinese Communist Party, with whom he helped establish the League of Left-Wing Writers.

As part of the Sun Society, A Ying wrote extensively on matters of literature. Borrowing the concept of "proletarian realism", first espoused in the Soviet Union, he advocated for a class-conscious style of literature that was communal and activist. This he contrasted with "bourgeois realism" (i.e., naturalism), which he decried as individualistic and stagnant as well as rooted in the assumption that writers could reach beyond their class origins. He was also critical of fellow leftist writers, declaring that Lu Xun provided little more than an "'empty pity' for the downtrodden", and that Mao Dun used obsolete literary forms to tell overly dark stories. Responding to Qian's critique that his Eclipse (1927-1928) offered "'nothing but the sick and bewildered attitudes' of young intellectuals", Mao responded that he had sought primarily to express his own disillusionment. These literary discourses continued through the late 1930s, with A Ying emphasising the need to "critically depict the inevitable and necessary reality and complete the task of knowing the life outside the institutional life."

Through his friendship with Zhou Jianyun of the Mingxing Film Company, A Ying brough several Communist writers to the studio. He also penned numerous screenplays. These included The Year of Harvest (1933), The Uprising (1933, co-authored with Zheng Boqi), Children of Our Time (1933, with Xia Yan and Zheng Boqi), Three Sisters (1934), and The Classic for Girls (1934, with Xia Yan, Zheng Zhengqiu, and Hong Shen).

Also in the 1930s Qian began to compile information on Chinese writers from the Ming and Qing dynasties, as well as those active in the contemporary Republic of China. Based on this research, he produced Women Writers in Modern China (1933) and Two Talks on the Novel (1958). He was laudatory of Su Xuelin, describing her as China's greatest writer of prose. Another work, published as Volume 10 in A Compendium of New Chinese Literature (1936), provided a list of more than 200 Chinese-language translations of literary text published through 1929.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War, A Ying penned several plays that promoted nationalist ideals and condemned the invading Empire of Japanese. Four of his plays produced in this period dramatized the heroes of the Southern Ming era, including Ge Nenniang [zh], Zhang Cangshui [zh], and Zheng Chenggong. Another highlighted the Qing-era Taiping Rebellion. Ultimately, he fled Shanghai in 1941 to avoid arrest.

During the Cultural Revolution, A Ying faced political persecution. He died of cancer on 17 June 1977.

Analysis

In his films, A Ying frequently criticized conditions in the Republic of China, thereby condemning the ruling Kuomintang government.

Kun Qian of Cornell University identifies a moralizing tendency in A Ying's wartime works, an appeal to the "moral essence" of the Chinese people that transcends time. Qian argues that this is most evident in the biography of Zheng Chenggong, wherein the general is shown turning against his father to uphold the Ming dynasty while simultaneously attempting to observe filial piety by allowing his patriarch an escape. The moral standing of these leaders was further supported by the modernization of female characters' roles in their societies, with the historical Zheng Chenggong's concubine being depicted as his daughter.

Selected works

• A Ying (阿英) (1960). 晚清文学丛钞 [Literature of the Late Qing]. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company.
• A Ying (阿英) (1999). 阿英全集 [The Complete A Ying Collection]. Hefei: Anhui Jiaoyu Chubanshe.

References

1. ^ Xiao 1998, p. 79.
2. Anderson 1990, p. 48.
3. Anderson 1990, p. 49.
4. Anderson 1990, p. 51.
5. Song 2023, p. 92.
6. Luebering 2009.
7. Kowallis 2010, p. 494.
8. Chan 2001.
9. Qian 2009, p. 106.
10. ^ Qian 2009, p. 107.
11. Qian 2009, p. 108.
12. Qian 2009, p. 110.

Works cited

• Anderson, Marston (1990). The Limits of Realism: Chinese Fiction in the Revolutionary Period. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-06436-2.
• Chan, Leo Tak-Hung (2001). "What's Modern in Chinese Translation Theory? Lu Xun and the Debates on Literalism and Foreignization in the May Fourth Period". TTR: Traduction, Terminologie, Rédaction. 14 (2): 195–223. doi:10.7202/000576ar.
• Kowallis, Jon Eugene von (2010). "The Enigma of Sue Xuelin and Lu Xun" (PDF). Literature and Philosophy (16): 493–528. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 June 2024.
• Luebering, J.E. (5 February 2009). "Aying". Encyclopaedia Britannica. Archived from the original on 8 October 2024. Retrieved 14 November 2024.
• Qian, Kun (2009). Empire Without End: Imperial History Printed, Staged, and Screened in Modern China, 1900-Present (Thesis). Cornell University. Archived from the original on 1 July 2024. Retrieved 14 November 2024.
• Song, Chris (2023). "The Trope of Life in Hong Kong Poetry: Realism, Survival, and Shenghuohua" (PDF). Writing Chinese: A Journal of Contemporary Sinophone Literature. 2 (1): 88–105. doi:10.22599/wcj.45.
• Xiao, Zhiwei (1998). "Ah Ying". In Zhang, Yingjin; Xiao, Zhiwei (eds.). Encyclopedia of Chinese Film. New York, London: Routledge. p. 79. ISBN 978-0-415-15168-9.