Zhang Ziping () (May 24, 1893 – December 2, 1959) was a Chinese writer born in Meixian,

Meizhou Meizhou (, Hakka Chinese: Mòichû) is a prefecture-level city in eastern Guangdong province, China. It has an area of , and a population of 3,873,239 million as of the 2020 census. It comprises Meijiang District, Meixian District, Xingning City ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

. He was a very popular author in the 1930s.

Biography

Zhang received a classical education and, after studying in Japan from 1912, received a degree in

geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ear ...

from

Tokyo Imperial University , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

in 1922. On his return to China, he engaged in various business ventures, wrote, taught geology and literature. However, he eventually decided on a literary career, and with

Yu Dafu Yu Wen, better known by his courtesy name Yu Dafu (December 7, 1896 – September 17, 1945) was a modern Chinese short story writer and poet. He was one of the new literary group initiators, and this new literary group was named the Creation Soci ...

Guo Moruo Guo Moruo (; November 16, 1892 – June 12, 1978), courtesy name Dingtang (), was a Chinese author, poet, historian, archaeologist, and government official. Biography Family history Guo Moruo, originally named Guo Kaizhen, was born on November ...

and

Tian Han Tian Han ( zh, 田汉; 12 March 1898 – 10 December 1968), formerly romanized as T'ien Han, was a Chinese drama activist, playwright, a leader of revolutionary music and films, as well as a translator and poet. He emerged at the time of the ...

he co-founded the

Creation Society The Creation Society was a left-wing cultural organisation in China to encourage literary and cultural exploration. The founders wished to establish a 'society of art for art's sake'. The Society was established by a group of students who were ...

which promoted vernacular and modern literature. He worked as an editor of their

literary magazine A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letter ...

and it was during this time that he published the semi-autobiographical ''Fossils in Alluvial Deposits'' (冲积期化石, 1922), his first novel and arguably the first long-form fiction work of the May 4 Perio

Zhang went on to pursue a successful career as a novelist, writing stories of torrid love triangles that were popular with audiences but panned by critics. In an essay later collected in the volume ''Two Minds'', Lu Xun wrote that Zhang's complete works could be distilled to a single symbol: a triangl

After leaving the Creation Society in the 1928, he started up his own publisher, Liqun Books, through which he issued books and a literary journal. His output of fiction slackened after the early 1930s, and by the middle of the decade he was mainly writing science books and doing translations from the Japanese. ''A Modern Scarlet Letter'' (新红A字), a romance set in wartime Shanghai and published in 1945, was his final novel. During the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

he worked for the collaborationist

Wang Jingwei Government The Wang Jingwei regime or the Wang Ching-wei regime is the common name of the Reorganized National Government of the Republic of China ( zh , t = 中華民國國民政府 , p = Zhōnghuá Mínguó Guómín Zhèngfǔ ), the government of the pup ...

in the Department of Agriculture and Mining, and later edited a journal for the Sino-Japanese Culture Association. After the defeat of the

Empire of Japan The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent fo ...

he was arrested and tried by the

Kuomintang The Kuomintang (KMT), also referred to as the Guomindang (GMD), the Nationalist Party of China (NPC) or the Chinese Nationalist Party (CNP), is a major political party in the Republic of China, initially on the Chinese mainland and in Tai ...

government for

treason Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...

in 1947. In early 1948 he was sentenced to fifteen months in prison, and was released in early 1949. During the early years of the People's Republic, Zhang taught geology in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

and continued his translation and editing work. In June 1955 he was arrested for being a counter-revolutionary, and in September 1958 was sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 1959 he was sent to a labor farm in

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

, where he died on December 2.

References

Encyclopædia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into articles ...

, article- "Chang Tzu-p'ing" 1893 births 1959 deaths Chinese expatriates in Japan Republic of China novelists Hakka people People from Meixian District University of Tokyo alumni 20th-century Chinese geologists Educators from Guangdong Republic of China translators People's Republic of China translators Japanese–Chinese translators Scientists from Guangdong 20th-century Chinese translators 20th-century novelists Chinese male novelists Hakka scientists Writers from Meizhou {{China-writer-stub