Cao Yu
| Cao Yu | |
|---|---|
Cao Yu
|
|
| Born | Wan Jiabao September 24, 1910 Tianjin |
| Died | December 13, 1996 (aged 86) Beijing |
| Occupation | Playwright |
| Language | Chinese |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Education | Nankai High School |
| Alma mater | Tsinghua University |
| Period | 1933-1996 |
| Genre | Drama |
| Notable works |
Thunderstorm Sunrise |
| Spouse |
Zheng Xiu (m. 1937–51) Fang Rui (m. 1951–74) Li Yuru (m. 1979–96) |
| Children | Daughter: Wan Fang, Wan Huan, etc. |
| Relatives | Wan Dezun (father) |
Cao Yu (Chinese: 曹禺; pinyin: Cáo Yú; Wade–Giles: Ts'ao Yü, September 24, 1910—December 13, 1996), born as Wan Jiabao (Chinese: 萬家寶/万家宝; pinyin: Wàn Jiābǎo), was a renowned Chinese playwright, often regarded as China's most important of the 20th century. His most well-known works are Thunderstorm (1933), Sunrise (1936) and Peking Man (1940). It is largely through the efforts of Cao Yu that the modern Chinese "spoken theater" took root in 20th-century Chinese literature.
Xiaomei Chen, author of The Columbia Anthology of Modern Chinese Drama, said that Cao was "[e]nthroned as China's Ibsen".
Cao Yu was born into an upper-class family in Qianjiang in the province of Hubei. When he was still an infant, his family's business interests necessitated a move to Tianjin where his father worked for a time as secretary to China's President, Li Yuanhong. Tianjin was a cosmopolitan city with a strong western influence, and during his childhood, Yu's mother would often take him to see western style plays, which were gaining in popularity at the time, as well as to productions of Chinese traditional opera.
Such western style theater (called "huàjù" in Chinese; 話劇 / 话剧) made inroads in China under the influence of noted intellectuals such as Chen Duxiu and Hu Shih, who were proponents of a wider cultural renewal campaign of the era, marked by anti-imperialism, and a re-evaluation of Chinese cultural institutions, such as Confucianism. The enterprise crystallized in 1919, in the so-called May Fourth Movement.
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