Bo Yang
| Guo Dingsheng 郭定生 |
|
|---|---|
| Born | Guo Dingsheng 7 March 1920 Kaifeng, Henan, China |
| Died | 29 April 2008 (aged 88) Xindian, Taipei County (now Xindian District of New Taipei City), Taiwan |
| Pen name | Boyang |
| Occupation | Historian, writer, philosopher |
| Language | Chinese |
| Citizenship | Republic of China |
| Alma mater | Northeastern University |
| Period | 1950–2008 |
Boyang (simplified Chinese: 柏杨; traditional Chinese: 柏楊; pinyin: Bóyáng; 7 March 1920 – 29 April 2008), sometimes also erroneously called Bai Yang, was a Chinese poet, essayist and historian based in Taiwan. He is also regarded as a social critic. His pen name is found in most sources as "Boyang", although this is often misconstrued in romanisation as the personal name "Bo Yang". According to his own memoir, the exact date of his birthday was unknown even to himself. He later adopted 7 March, the date of his 1968 imprisonment, as his birthday.
Boyang was born as Guō Dìngshēng (郭定生) in Kaifeng, Henan Province, China, with family origins in Huixian. Boyang's father changed his son's name to Guō Lìbāng (郭立邦) to facilitate a transfer to another school. Bo Yang later changed his name to Guo Yìdòng, also spelled Kuo I-tung (郭衣洞). In high school, Boyang participated in youth organisations of the Kuomintang, the then-ruling party of the Republic of China, and joined the Kuomintang itself in 1938. He graduated from the National Northeastern University, and moved to Taiwan after the Kuomintang lost the civil war in 1949.
In 1950, he was imprisoned for six months for listening to Communist Chinese radio broadcasts. He had various jobs during his life, including that of a teacher. During this time, he began to write novels. In 1960, he began using the pen name Boyang when he started to write a political commentary column in the Independent Evening News. The name was derived from a place name in the mountains of Taiwan; he adopted it because he liked the sound of it. In 1961, he achieved acclaim with his novel The Alien Realm (異域 Yìyù), which told the story of a Kuomintang force which fought on in the borderlands of southwestern China long after the government had retreated to Taiwan. He became director of the Pingyuan Publishing House in 1966, and also edited the cartoon page of China Daily (中華日报).
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