Gu Cheng

Gu Cheng
Born	September 24, 1956(1956-09-24) Beijing, China
Died	October 8, 1993(1993-10-08) (aged 37) Rocky Bay, Waiheke Island, Auckland, New Zealand
Occupation	poet, essayist, novelist
Nationality	New Zealand
Literary movement	Misty Poets, modernism

Gu Cheng (顧城，1956-1993) was a famous Chinese modern poet, essayist, and novelist. He was a prominent member of the "Misty Poets", a group of Chinese modernist poets.

Biography

Gu Cheng began life in privilege as the son of a prominent party member. His father was the army poet Gu Gong. At the age of twelve, his family was sent down to rural Shandong because of the Cultural Revolution (as means of re-education) where they bred pigs. There, he claimed to have learned poetry directly from nature.

In the late 1970s, Cheng became associated with the journal "Today" (Jintian) which began a movement in poetry known as "menglong" meaning "hazy, "obscure". He became an international celebrity and travelled around the world accompanied by his wife, Xie Ye. The two settled in Rocky Bay, a small village on Waiheke Island, Auckland, New Zealand in 1987. Cheng taught Chinese at the University of Auckland in the City of Auckland.

In October 1993, Gu Cheng attacked his wife before hanging himself. She died later in a hospital. The story of his death was widely covered in the Chinese media

Trivia

Gu Cheng often wore a leg cut off from a pair of jeans as a hat.

Quote

"Even with these dark eyes, a gift of the dark night, I go to seek the shining light"

Further reading

• Chinese Writers on Writing featuring Gu Cheng. Ed. Arthur Sze. (Trinity University Press, 2010).

External links

• Dead in Exile: The Life and Death of Gu Cheng and Xie Ye by Anne-Marie Brady. A personal account and review of several books about Gu Cheng and Xie Ye's last days.
• Gu Cheng's Fortress official website by a small group of people who studied Gu Cheng's work.