Chen Yingzhen

Chen Yingzhen , born 1936, is a Taiwanese author. Since the 1980s, he has been viewed by many as "Taiwan's greatest author", according to Jeffrey C. Kinkley. Chen is also notable for serving a prison sentence for "subversive activity" between 1968 and 1973. He has been active since the late-1950s.

Chen was again imprisoned in 1979.

The ''Collected Works of Chen Yingzhen'' is 15 volumes long, and was published in 1988. Some of his stories were also included in Lucien Miller's ''Exiles at Home''.

Biography

Chen Yingzhen was born in northern Taiwan, the son of a devout Christian minister. Despite this, he never was a Christian himself while growing up. He was arrested in 1968 by the Kuomintang for "leading procommunist activities", and was imprisoned until 1973.

Style

Some critics have seen Chen's work as featuring important moral dimensions while lacking technical proficiency. For example, Joseph S. M. Lau said of Chen, "his output is relatively small and his style is at times embarrassing, yet he is a very important writer...Almost alone among his contemporaries, he addresses himself to some of the most sensitive problems of his time".

Thought

Chen has been supporter of the notion of a unifying Chinese national identity in Taiwan, as opposed to "nativist" writers like Zhang Liangze, who support the development of a native Taiwanese consciousness.