Chou Meng-tieh (; 29 December 1921 – 1 May 2014) was a Taiwanese poet and writer. He lived in

Tamsui District Tamsui District () is a seaside District (Taiwan), district in New Taipei City, Taiwan adjacent to the Tamsui River and overlooking the Taiwan Strait. The name of the district means "fresh water" in Chinese. Although modest in size (population ...

, New Taipei City.

Biography

He was born Chou Chi-shu in Xichuan County,

Henan Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...

in 1921. In 1948, Chou joined the China Youth Corps and was forced to drop out of school. He was sent to

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

following the defeat of Chiang Kai-shek's army in the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government, government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermitt ...

, leaving his wife, two sons, and daughter behind in

Mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

. He settled in

, New Taipei City. Chou started writing in the '' Central Daily News'' and publishing poetry in 1952. He retired from the army in 1955. In 1959, he started selling books outside the Cafe Astoria in

Taipei , nickname = The City of Azaleas , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Taiwan#Asia#Pacific Ocean#Earth , coordinates = , subdivision_type = Country ...

and published his first book of poetry entitled ''Lonely County''. Chou's book stall became a gathering spot for well-known writers, such as Huang Chun-ming, Pai Hsien-yung, and Sanmao. Chou wrote often on the subjects of time, life, and death, and was influenced by Buddhism. In 1980, the American magazine ''Orientations'' praised him as the "Amoy Street Prophet". During the same year, he was forced to close his book stall in front of Cafe Astoria due to gastric ulcer surgery. He was the first recipient of the National Culture and Arts Foundation Literature Laureate Award in 1997. Chou died of pneumonia in New Taipei City on May 1, 2014 at the age of 92. His funeral was held twelve days later, with writers and politicians including Chang Show-foong,

Lung Ying-tai Lung Ying-tai () is a Taiwanese writer, cultural critic, and public intellectual. With more than 30 books to her credit, she not only has a large number of readers in her native Taiwan, but her works also have an impact in Chinese-language commu ...

, Timothy Yang, and in attendance. A bilingual selection from Chou's poetry with English translations by Lloyd Haft, ''Zhou Mengdie: 41 Poems'', was published by Azoth Books (Taiwan) in 2022.

References

External links

''Frontier Taiwan: an anthology of modern Chinese poetry''
on

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chou, Meng-tieh Taiwanese poets 20th-century Chinese poets 2014 deaths 1921 births Poets from Henan 20th-century Taiwanese poets Chinese Civil War refugees Military personnel of the Republic of China Taiwanese people from Henan Writers from Nanyang, Henan