Su Shuyang (; 1938 – 16 July 2019), who also used the pen names Shu Yang () and Yu Pingfu (), was a Chinese playwright, novelist, and screenwriter. He also wrote the bestselling

non-fiction Non-fiction (or nonfiction) is any document or content (media), media content that attempts, in good faith, to convey information only about the real life, real world, rather than being grounded in imagination. Non-fiction typically aims to pre ...

work ''A Reader on China'', which sold 15 million copies.

Life and career

Su Shuyang was born in 1938 in

Baoding Baoding is a prefecture-level city in central Hebei province, approximately southwest of Beijing. As of the 2020 census, Baoding City had 11,544,036 inhabitants, of which 2,549,787 lived in the metropolitan area made of 4 out of 5 urban distri ...

Hebei Hebei is a Provinces of China, province in North China. It is China's List of Chinese administrative divisions by population, sixth-most populous province, with a population of over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. It bor ...

, Republic of China. After graduating in 1960 from

Renmin University of China The Renmin University of China (RUC) is a public university in Haidian, Beijing, China. The university is affiliated with the Ministry of Education, and co-funded by the Ministry of Education and the Beijing Municipal People's Government. The ...

with a degree in history, he taught at several universities including Beijing College of Chinese Medicine. After the end of the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

, Su wrote his first play, ''The Story of Loyal Hearts'' (丹心谱, 1978). A representative work in the "anti-

Gang of Four The Gang of Four () was a Maoist political faction composed of four Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials. They came to prominence during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) and were later charged with a series of treasonous crimes due to th ...

" genre, the play depicts a doctor dedicated to researching a new medicine despite sabotage by the Gang's followers. It was highly popular and launched Su's writing career. Following the success of his first play, Su was hired by

Beijing Film Studio Beijing, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's most populous national capital city as well as China's second largest city by urban area after Shanghai. It is lo ...

as a screenwriter. He wrote the screenplay for the film ''Sunset Street'' (), which documents the changes to the lives of Beijingers during the

reform and opening Reform and opening-up ( zh, s=改革开放, p=Gǎigé kāifàng), also known as the Chinese economic reform or Chinese economic miracle, refers to a variety of economic reforms termed socialism with Chinese characteristics and socialist market ...

era. The film resonated with the audience and was a major success. He subsequently wrote a number of screenplays and novels, including ''Homeland'' (). Su's second play, ''Neighbours'' (左邻右舍, 1980), continued the tradition of the celebrated writer

Lao She Shu Qingchun (3 February 189924 August 1966), known by his pen name Lao She, was a Chinese writer of Manchu ethnicity, known for his vivid portrayal of urban life and his colorful use of the Beijing dialect, such as in the novel '' Rickshaw Boy' ...

in depicting the lives of ordinary people of Beijing. It centres on a retired worker who helps the sick, the elderly, and the downtrodden, such as a former "

rightist Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property, r ...

" falsely denounced for criticizing the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

(CCP). Su's tragedy, ''Taiping Lake'', features Lao She himself. It depicts the last day of the writer's life (24 August 1966), when he drowned himself in the lake after being tortured by the

Red Guards The Red Guards () were a mass, student-led, paramilitary social movement mobilized by Chairman Mao Zedong in 1966 until their abolition in 1968, during the first phase of the Cultural Revolution, which he had instituted.Teiwes According to a ...

. In the play, Lao She wanders around Taiping Lake, converses with the tragic characters he has condemned to death in his works, and contemplates the tragic irony of his own life: his devotion to the CCP and the charges against him of being an anti-CCP counterrevolutionary. In 1998, Su published ''A Reader on China'' (), a 150,000-character non-fiction book on Chinese civilization. It became his best-selling work, with 15 million copies sold. The book was well received at the 2005

Frankfurt Book Fair The Frankfurt Book Fair (German: , FBM) is the world's largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies represented. The five-day annual event in mid-October is held at the Frankfurt Trade Fair grounds in Frankfurt am ...

and

Bertelsmann The Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Bertelsmann (), is a German privately held company, private multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, ...

published its German translation. In 2008, he published ''A Reader on Tibet'' (), which he had spent three years researching and writing.

Death

Su suffered from cancer and underwent surgery to remove part of his stomach, lung, and spleen. He was prevented from writing new novels and plays in his later life due to poor health. He died on 16 July, 2019, in Beijing, at the age of 81.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Su, Shuyang 1938 births 2019 deaths Writers from Baoding Chinese dramatists and playwrights 20th-century Chinese novelists Screenwriters from Hebei Renmin University of China alumni Chinese non-fiction writers