Yu Ta-fu, pinyin Yu Dafu was a 1920's Chinese short story writer. He was born in 1896 in Fu-yang in the Chekiang province, and died in September 1945 in Sumatra (in the Dutch East Indies).
He received his higher education in Japan where he met other Chinese intellectuals (namely, Guo Moruo, Zhang Ziping and Tian Han). Together, in 1921 they founded the Ch'ang-tsao she ("Creation Society"), which promoted vernacular and modern literature. His first work (Ch'en-lun "Sinking") was published from Japan, and due to its frank dealing with sex, gained immense popularity in China. He returned to China a literary celebrity and worked in the Creation Society editing journals and writing short stories. In 1923, after an attack of tuberculosis, Yu Dafu directed his attention to the welfare of the masses, and in 1926, due to conflicts with Communists in the Society, he was forced to resign. He worked as a writer of anti-Japanese propaganda during the Second Sino-Japanese war. From 1938 to 1942, he worked as a literary editor for the newspaper Sin Jew Ji Poh in Singapore. In 1942 when the Japanese army invaded Singapore, he was forced to flee to Sumatra where he was murdered three years later by Japanese military police.
His most popular work, breaking all Chinese sales records, was Jih-chi chiu-chung "Nine Diaries", which detailed his affair with the writer Wang Ying-hsin. The most critically acclaimed work is Kuo-ch'u or "The Past", written in 1927, which is said to have psychological depth.
Works
Ch'en-lun "Sinking" (1921)
Jih-chi chiu-chung “Nine Diaries” (1927)
Kuo-ch'ü “The Past" (1927)
his first novel?? (1928) (moderatly successful)
his second novel?? (1932)
Ch'u-pen "Flight" (1935)
References
Encyclopedia Britannica 2005 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, article- "Yü Ta-fu"
