Yü Ta-fu (1896-September 1945), a founding member of the Creation Society and one of the most important Chinese writers of the 1920's. The youngest of three boys born into a poor but scholarly family in Fuyang, Ghekiang, Yü Ta-fu received his early education in a variety of schools, including the Hangchow First Middle School. He read widely as a boy, devouring the Chinese classics, vernacular fiction, and translations by Lin Shu (q.v.) of Western fiction. After the republican revolution of 191 1, he was sent to Japan, where he enrolled at the Tokyo First Middle School in 1912. Upon graduation in 1916, he entered Tokyo Imperial University, where he studied economics until 1922. During this period, most of Yü's time was spent in reading fiction and in the enjoyment of the pleasures which the Japanese capital aflforded. He later estimated that in his four years at the Tokyo First Middle School alone he read close to 1 ,000 Western novels and short stories and that "if I was not reading novels, I was most often seen in cafes, seeking girl companions to drink wine with me. No one was studying hard . . . ." During his sojourn in Japan, Yü Ta-fu came to know Kuo Mo-jo, Chang Tzu-p'ing, T'ien Han (qq.v.), and other Chinese students who were interested in literature. When Yü first met them he wrote only in classical Chinese, and he was accounted a good poet in the traditional forms. Under the influence of discussions with his new friends, Yü began to write in the vernacular style being advocated by Hu Shih and Ch'en Tu-hsiu (qq.v.). In the summer of 1921 Yü Ta-fu and his friends organized the Ch'uang-tsao she (Creation Society) to promote interest in modern literature. Also in 1921, Yü published his first collection of stories, Ch'en-lun [sinking]. The title story was a thinly disguised autobiographical account of the loneliness and sexual temptation experienced by a young Chinese student in Japan. The neurotic hero, after several voyeuristic experiences, is humiliated in a Japanese brothel because of his Chinese nationality. He spends the night drinking and kills himself the next day by walking into the sea. "Ch'en-lun" ends with a supplication that China and her people make themselves sufficiently strong to avoid all humiliations and sufferings. In this story, Yü dealt squarely with the themes of sexual discovery and national shame and in a way which appealed to young Chinese readers. His work was bitterly attacked as pornographic and worse by conservative critics, but it was defended by Chou Tso-jen (q.v.) and others. In little more than a few weeks 20,000 copies o[ Ch'en-lun were sold; and when Yü returned to China in 1922, he found himself a literary hero.

Yü Ta-fu spent the next six years adding to his literary reputation, taking a leading role in the affairs of the Creation Society, and teaching in various colleges. As a member of the editorial staff or as a contributor, Yü participated in the Ch'uang-tsao chi-k'an [creation quarterly], begun in 1922; the Ch'uang-tsao chou-k'an [creation weekly], begun in 1923; the Ch'uang-tsao jih-pao [creation daily] and the Hung-shui [the flood], both begun in 1925; the Ch'uang-tsao yileh-k' an [creation monthly], begun in 1926; and in the Creation Society series of modern fiction, in which his own Ch'en-lun appeared as the first selection. Yü's stories, mostly in his original decadent vein, remained popular with the public, especially his "Wei-ping" [stomach trouble], "Huai-hsiang ping-che" [victim of nostalgia], and "Feng-ling" [bell in the wind], all written in Japan, and his "Mang-mang yeh" [boundless night] and "Ch'iu-liu" [autumn willow], written in 1922 in China. Like "Ch'en-lun," the stories are autobiographical and neurotic in tone, with themes ranging from poverty, harassed domestic life, and the cruelty of the world to fetishism, homosexuality, masochism, and kleptomania. Skilled as he was at portraying anguish and vacillation, Yü was at his best in leading the reader into the depths of a character by revelation of the character's darkest secrets and innermost feelings. Yü's early stories are, as he described them, decadent, and they focus on one subject, sex. It is probably here that Yü had his greatest influence and appeal, for in dealing with sex and modern love he shattered old taboos and won the interest and admiration of thousands of Chinese youn^ people. Yü's pellucid style, derived in part from his devotion to classical poetry, also contributed to his popularity, and as the years went by, his psychological insight, at first limited to the thwarted and abnormal, expanded to embrace a wide variety of Chinese types.

Like other writers of the period, Yü was obliged to supplement his income from writing with teaching jobs in various places. In the early months of 1923, he taught briefly at the Anking School of Law and Political Science in Anhwei. That September, Yü accepted appointment as an instructor in literature at Peking University, a post which he held on and off for nearly two years. In 1925, while teaching at Wuchang University, he fell ill of tuberculosis and was obliged to suspend all activity for six months. This period of enforced leisure, endured though it was in anxiety and straitened circumstances, gave Yü ample time to ponder his career and to meditate upon his future; and when he finally recovered, he was much changed from the writer with whom the public had grown familiar.

In 1923 Yü Ta-fu had begun to study the life and thought of Alexander Herzen. Under the influence of this Russian champion of revolutionary democracy, as well as that of his fellow provincial Lu Hsün (Chou Shu-jen, q.v.), whom Yü had come to know in 1924 and whose close friend he later became, Yü slowly began to evolve a new attitude toward writing. As before, the inner life of the individual remained at the center of his interest, but he now turned to exploration of this life against the background of society as a whole. PVom preoccupation with self-portrayal and the infirmities of love, Yü moved on to explore the themes of poverty and the vitality of the masses. Beginning with "Ch'un-feng ch'en-tsui-ti wanshang" [one intoxicating spring evening], of 1923, Yü abandoned decadence for a somberly moral point of view. In that story, the hero, an out-of-work writer living in a slum, is looked after by an orphaned factory girl who suspects that he is a thief because of his habit of sleeping all day and taking long walks at night. At the climax of the story, when an unexpected check makes it possible for the writer to repay the girl and the two are enjoying a late evening snack, she solemnly asks him to give up smoking and to end his association with thieves. The girl's sincerity and innocence are a profound revelation to the writer, and the story concludes with his suppressing his amatory desires and promising to reform. The milieu and the neurotic hero are familiar from Yü's earlier work, but a new, and healthy, note is struck in the exploration of the effects of poverty on two young people and the emphasis on the powers of innocence.

Restored to health and armed with his new outlook, Yü joined the staff of Sun Yat-sen University at Canton in March 1926 together with such Creation Society members as Kuo Mo-jo, Wang Ta-ch'ing, Ch'eng Fang-wu, and Mu Mu-t'ien. Yü's tenure at Canton was short and coincided with the failure of the Communist revolution there. Yü then returned to Shanghai, where he resumed a leading role in direction of the Creation Society, took over the editorship of Hung-shui, and began to collect his writings for the Ta-fu ch'uan-chi [collected works of Yü Ta-fu], which was subsequently published over four years, 1928-31.

About this time, Yü fell in love with Wang Ying-hsia, a young left-wing writer. Through her and through Ch'ien Hsing-ts'un (A-ying), a proletarian critic, Yü became acquainted with what then passed for revolutionary literature in China. The romance and the new associations also contributed to Yü's new point of view. His account of the affair, Jih-chi chiu-chung [nine diaries], was published in 1927 and became an immediate best seller, breaking all previous records for Chinese books. "Kuoch'ü" [the past], which some critics consider Yü's best work, was also published in 1927. In its exploration of love disappointed and disclosed too late, it achieved depths of psychological insight which were acknowledged by critics and public alike.

Yü's return to Shanghai in 1926 coincided with Kuo Mo-jo's absence on the Northern Expedition, and it appears that Yü, who could now be described as a humanistic socialist, soon fell out with the Communist-inspired elements of the Creation Society because of their emphasis on discipline and propaganda at the expense of art. Accordingly, Yü reorganized the society, expelled three of the most radical members, and seemed on the point of joining forces with the Yü-ssu [threads of talk] group, centered around Chou Tso-jen and his brother, Lu Hsün. The more numerous pro- Kuo Mo-jo members of the society disapproved of this course of action and, after many acrimonious discussions, forced Yü to quit. Yü announced his withdrawal from the Creation Society on 15 August 1927, thus terminating an association of nearly a decade with what was the most influential literary and cultural group of its time.

Yü's association with Lu Hsün, Chiang Kuang-tz'u, a Russian-trained proletarian writer, and others of Lu Hsün's circle became closer after his departtire from the Creation Society. Yü admired Lu Hsün and rated his writing as the most mature and profound among his contemporaries. Lu Hsün reciprocated this feeling, and the friendship between the two culminated in Yü's editing the monthly Pen-liu [the torrent] jointly with Lu Hsün in 1928. At this time Yü also became interested in Rousseau and Nietzsche, both of whose works he translated, and for a time he meditated a novel on the life of the German philosopher. Some of this material subsequently appeared in his collection Chi-ling [trivia], notable for its overtly Marxist cast of thought.

In 1928 Yü also published his first novel, Ali-yang [lost sheep], which was not so well received as his short stories had been. Mi-yang was a typical Yü autobiographical short story expanded to novel length, and it was praised principally for its style. After 1928, Yü's association with Lu Hsün and his followers became sporadic. In 1929 he gave in to leftwing pressures and took over the editorship of Ta-chung wen-i [mass literature], but later he joined Soong Ch'ing-hng, Ts'ai Yüan-p'ei, Yang Ch'uan (qq.v.), Lu Hsün, and others in sponsormg the China League for Civil Rights. In 1930 Yü became a member of the League of Leftwing Writers, but he soon found the group too demanding of time and "agitprop" output. He left the league to become an associate of Lin Yü-t'ang (q.v.) and Chou Tso-jen, who at that time stood for a nonpolitical humanistic literature. Typical of Yü's writing during this period was Han-hui [cold ashes], a miscellany devoted mostly to literary essays but containing some short stories. The piece in it which won most immediate attention was his open letter to a young student, in which Yü bitterly castigated the warlords, decried the worthlessness of the degree the young man was soon to take, and advised him that stealing is the only way to success.

In 1932 Yü withdrew formally from the field of proletarian literature with the publication of his second and last novel, T'a shih i-ko jo nü-tzu [she is a weak woman]. A year later he retired with Wang Ying-hsia to the scenic West Lake at Hangchow, where he spent most of his time sightseeing and writing about the city and its environs. He also visited most of the historic and scenic places of interest in Chekiang, and he eventually produced more than 30 travel diaries of varying lengths detailing his visits to them. Between travel writing and extensive reading in the Chinese classics, another of Yü's diversions at Hangchow, he had very little time for fiction. He completed only one important work, Ch'u-pen [flight], a novel which appeared in 1935 and which was destined to be the last important piece of fiction by Yü to be published during his lifetime.

In February 1936, possibly on account of his Japanese educational background, Yü was appointed a counselor to the Fukien provincial government, headed by Ch'en Yi (q.v.). In this capacity he took a short trip to Japan, but the nature of his business is unknown. While in Tokyo, he called on Kuo Mo-jo and renewed their friendship. Also in 1936, Yü published a collection of amorous correspondence under the title Hsien-tai ming-jen ch'ing-shu [love letters of famous men of modern times], which included billets doux penned by such personages as Kuo Mo-jo, Lu Hsün, Hsü Chih-mo (qv.), and Chang Tzu-p'ing.

When the Sino-Japanese war began in July 1937, Yü Ta-fu resigned his post in Fukien. At Kuo Mo-jo's invitation, he joined the literary propaganda section of the Military Affairs Commission's political department at Hangchow. He wrote anti-Japanese propaganda and visited troops on several fronts. In the winter of 1938 Yü accepted an invitation from a friend in Singapore to assume the editorship of the Hsing-chou jih-pao [Singapore daily] and the Hua-ch'iao jih-pao [overseas Chinese daily]. He also joined various anti- Japanese organizations in Singapore and soon became a leading figure in the work of rallying overseas Chinese support against Japan. When Singapore fell to Japanese troops early in 1942, Yü fled to Sumatra in the company of the writer Wang Jen-shu (Pa Jen) and others. There he changed his name to Chao Lien and opened a wine shop. One day Yü inadvertently spoke some Japanese and was immediately conscripted as an interpreter by the Japanese military police. Wang Jen-shu and others later reported that Yü used his position with the Japanese to protect patriotic Chinese and to attack traitors. In the course of his language duties, Yü probably also learned of a number of Japanese atrocities. The week after the Japanese surrender and a few days before the Allied Command took over Sumatra on 17 September 1945, Yü left his home in answer to a midnight summons. He was never seen again. It was assumed at the time that he had been executed on orders of the Japanese military police.

Yü's works continued to be popular with the postwar reading public. New editions of the Ta-fu ch'uan-chi appeared in 1947 and 1966. In addition, a number of anthologies of his writings appeared : Yu Ta-fu yu-chi [the travel accounts of Yü Ta-fu], published in 1948 and reprinted in 1956; Ta-fu shih-tzu chi [poems in various styles by Yü Ta-fu], of 1954; Yü Ta-fu nan-yu chi [Yü Ta-fu's accounts of travels in the south], of 1956; Yü Ta-fu jih-chi [Yü Ta-fu's diaries], of 1961 ; and Yü Ta-fu shih-tz'u ch'ao [selection of Yü Ta-fu's poetry in various styles], of 1962.