Chan Tah Wei (; born 28 September 1969) is a

Malaysian Chinese Malaysian Chinese (; Malay: ''Orang Cina Malaysia''), alternatively Chinese Malaysians, are Malaysian citizens of Han Chinese descent. They form the second largest ethnic group after the Malay majority constituting 22.4% of the Malaysian po ...

poet, prose writer and academic. He is currently teaching at the National Taiwan University.

Early life and education

Chan was born in

Ipoh , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Ipoh in Perak , pushpin_map = #Malaysia#Asia#Earth , pushpin_mapsize = 275px , pushpin_map_caption = Ipoh in Malaysia , coordinates ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

on 28 September 1969. He received his

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in Chinese from National Taiwan University and

Master of Philosophy The Master of Philosophy (MPhil; Latin ' or ') is a postgraduate degree. In the United States, an MPhil typically includes a taught portion and a significant research portion, during which a thesis project is conducted under supervision. An MPhil m ...

in Chinese from Soochow University. He then obtained his

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

from National Taiwan Normal University, and taught at Nanya Institute of Technology and

Yuan Ze University Yuan Ze University (YZU; ) is a private university located in Taoyuan City, Taiwan. Established in 1989, YZU campus is in Zhongli District, Taoyuan; Taipei; and Bade District, Taoyuan. Yuan Ze has five colleges, Engineering (accredited by IEET), ...

, before returning to National Taiwan University as assistant professor.

Writings

Chan mainly writes Modern Chinese poetries and had been receiving awards since his university years. He wrote ''The Prologue of Controlled Waters'' (Chinese:治洪前書) based on Chinese

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

, ''Swan Goose Gate Again'' (Chinese:再鴻門) which deconstructs Chinese history and ''The City Kingdom full of Phantoms'' (Chinese:盡是魅影的城國) which illustrates the daily lives of sojourned Chinese. While unlike the first three collection of poetries which focused on narratives and writing techniques, Chan wrote ''Approaching Ramayana'' (Chinese:靠近羅摩衍那), his fourth collection of poetries, with a less intense narrative and included references to other Asian poems, such as

Bei Dao Bei Dao (, born August 2, 1949) is the pen name of the Chinese-American writer Zhao Zhenkai (S: 赵振开, T: 趙振開, P: ''Zhào Zhènkāi''). Among the most acclaimed Chinese-language poets of his generation, he is often regarded as a candida ...

and

Guo Lusheng Guo Lusheng (, born 1948 Shandong), pen name Shi Zhi (食指, ''index finger''), was an influential Chinese poet of the 1960s, considered the "founder of the New Poetry movement". His poems were the first to break with the Mao Zedong-style classi ...

’s works and the

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film with heroic elements Epic or EPIC may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and medi ...

Ramayana The ''Rāmāyana'' (; sa, रामायणम्, ) is a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic composed over a period of nearly a millennium, with scholars' estimates for the earliest stage of the text ranging from the 8th ...

'', differing from other modern poetries which often include Western literary or historical references and imageries.

References

Malaysian writers Malaysian poets National Taiwan University alumni Soochow University (Taiwan) alumni National Taiwan Normal University alumni Malaysian expatriates in Taiwan People from Ipoh Taiwanese poets 21st-century Taiwanese poets 1969 births Living people {{Malaysia-poet-stub