Chinese Literature - Li-hua Ying 2010

QIDENG SHENG, PEN NAME OF LIU WUXIONG (1939— )
The Dictionary

QIDENG SHENG, PEN NAME OF LIU WUXIONG (1939— ). A Taiwan native, Qideng Sheng graduated from Taipei Normal College with a degree in art. He is noted for his controversial modernist writings, most published in the 1960s and 1970s and known for their loose structure and idiosyncratic, abstruse language. With little attention to plots, his stories, told often in the first-person subjective voice, read like lyrical essays. His protagonists, loners standing at the edge of society, tell the reader the minute details of their lives and innermost feelings, appealing directly to the reader’s sympathy. Letters and interior monologues as used in Tanlang de shuxin (Letters from Tanlang) and Simu weiwei (Whispers of Love) are typical of Qideng’s narrative style. Other works include Wo ai hei yanzhu (I Love Black Eyes), his best-known work about the alienated youth in modern Taiwanese society, and Shahe bei ge (Sad Songs of the Sha River), recollections by a disillusioned musician suffering from acute lung disease. Other than fiction, Qideng has also written poetry.