Wang Tung-chao

(Wang Chien-san). Born 1898; died 1957. Chinese writer.

Wang Tung-Chao was one of the initiators in the founding of the Society for the Study of Literature. He began to publish in 1920. He wrote the collections of short stories On a Rainy Spring Night (1924) and Traces of Hoarfrost (1931), the collection of poems The Heart of a Child (1925), and the novellas Leaf (1922), Dusk (1925), and others. In his early works he portrayed the life drama of youth in a semifeudal society under conditions of the rule of Confucian ideology. However, he often lapsed into idealization, exaggerating the significance of mutual understanding among people as a means of improving society. Wang T’ung-Chao’s views changed greatly after the Revolution of 1924-27. In his greatest novel, Rain in the Hills, he accurately portrays life in the Chinese countryside, reveals the reasons why the peasants were driven to ruin, and shows the growth of their revolutionary self-awareness.