Zhang Tianyi, real name: Zhang Yuanding; 26 September 1906 – 28 April 1985) was a 20th-century Chinese
left-wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
writer and
children's author
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories, books, magazines, and poems that are created for children. Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways: genre or the intended age of the reader.
Children's ...
, whose novels and short stories achieved acclaim in the 1930s for his satiric wit.
Biography
Zhang was born in
Nanjing
Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...
in 1906. Before 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 T ...
, he worked as a teacher, journalist and minor official. His prolific literary career started out in the 1920s. By the early 1930s Zhang had joined both the League of Left-Wing Writers and
Mao's Chinese Communist Party
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...
. During the war and after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, he continued to write and held various official posts, including the editorship of the literary journal ''Renmin Wenxue'' (''People's Literature'').
His novels include ''
Big Lin and Little Lin'', ''The Kingdom of Golden Ducks'', and ''
The Secret of the Magic Gourd''.
Works
The hostility of the Chinese
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 Ta ...
regime meant that much of Zhang's writing had to be serialized in underground journals.
[ Shereshevskaya, N. "Про тех, кто родом из детства". In ''Путешествие дядюшки Тик-Так и другие сказки современных зарубежных писателей'' (''The Travels of Uncle Tick-Tock and Other Stories by Contemporary Foreign Writers''). Moscow: Pravda Publishers, 1989.]
These are the first full editions of Zhang Tianyi's works:
Stories and shorter works
*"A Three-and-a-Half Days' Dream" (1929)
*"Mr. Jing Ye" (1930)
*"Revenge" (1930 to 1931)
*"The Sorrows of Pig Guts" (1931)
*"On the Lack of Vigor in Composition: Its Reasons and its Cure" (1932)
*"A Tale of Writing" (1933)
*"Tips" (1933)
*"A Hyphenated Story" (1934)
*"Smile" (1934)
*"Strange Encounter" (1934)
*"The Bulwark" (1936)
*"Mr. Hua Wei" (1938)
*"Art and Struggle" (1939)
*"The Story of Luo Wenying" (1952)
Novels, novellas, and novelettes
*''A Diary of Hell'' (1931)
*''
Big Lin and Little Lin'' (1932)
*''The Cogwheel'' (1932)
*''One Year'' (1933)
*''Changing Paths'' (1934)
*''
The Pidgin Warrior'' (1936)
*''In the City'' (1937)
*''
Friends-Pioneers'' (1956)
*''
The Secret of the Magic Gourd'' (1958)
*''The Kingdom of Golden Ducks'' (1980)
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zhang, Tianyi
1906 births
1985 deaths
Chinese children's writers
Marxist journalists
Marxist writers
Writers from Nanjing
Chinese male short story writers
Republic of China novelists
Republic of China journalists
People's Republic of China journalists
20th-century novelists
Chinese male novelists
20th-century Chinese short story writers
Republic of China short story writers
People's Republic of China short story writers
Short story writers from Jiangsu