Township: | 北京 | ||||
Read works of Gu Cheng at 小说之家 Read works of Gu Cheng at 诗海 |
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 Auckland, New Zealand in 1987 where Cheng taught Chinese at the University of Auckland.
In October 1993, Gu Cheng severely beat his wife before hanging himself. She died later in a hospital.
Trivia
Gu Cheng often wore a leg cut off from a pair of jeans as a hat.
At the age of three, he invented his own language, but no one understood him.
Quote
"Dark nights gave me these dark eyes, but I shall use them to seek the light."