Born in Nanking, China, in 1928, Yu Kwang-chung is a poet and essayist well known to the readers of Hong Kong and Taiwan. A graduate of the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, National Taiwan University, and an M.F.A. of the State University of Iowa, he had been for many years a professor of English literature at leading universities in Taiwan before he joined the faculty of the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1974, where he taught translation and modern Chinese literature until 1985. During 1964-66 and 1967-71 he lectured on Chinese literature in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar. Since 1985 he has been Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, National Sun Yat-sen University.
A prolific and versatile writer, Yu Kwang-chung has published more than 30 books, most of which are in verse, the rest in prose, criticism, and translation. His poetry enjoys considerable popularity and is widely anthologized. Such composers as Yang Hsien, Li Tai-hsiang, and Lo Ta-yu have set a number of his poems to music. Of his many books of verse, the most recent are Bauhinia and Kannon Bodhisattva across the Sea, while the most famous are Associations of the Lotus and The White Jade Bitter Gourd. Besides The Importance of Being Earnest, Yu has also translated the following into Chinese: The Old Man and the Sea, Lust for Life, Bartleby the Scrivener, Anthology of Modern British and American Poetry, and Anthology of Modern Turkish Poetry. He has also translated the following from Chinese into English: New Chinese Poetry and Acres of Barbed Wire, a selection of his own poems.
The Fire-Fresh Phoenix, a selection of critical essays on Yu's poetry and prose, was edited by Dr. Wong Wai-leung and published in 1979.
Yu Kwang-chung
A Folk Song
By legend a song was sung in the North
By the Yellow River, with her mighty lungs.
From Blue Sea to Yellow Sea,
It's heard in the wind,
And heard in the sand.
If the Yellow River froze into icy river,
There's the Long River's most motherly hum.
From the Plateau to the plain,
It's heard by the dragons,
And heard by the fish.
If the Long River froze into icy river,
There's myself, my Red Sea howling in me.
From high tide to low tide,
It's heard full awake,
And heard full asleep.
If one day my blood, too, shall freeze hard,
There's the choir of your blood and his blood.
From group A to group O.
It's heard while sobbing,
And heard while laughing.
Toilers on the Sea
Is the sunset splendor burning orange-red
Someone's far, far-off cry,
A cry for you with echoes across the sky?
Time for supper now, toilers on the sea,
How can you, over the rolling waste,
Seek your fair-wind homeward way?
How can your boat with breast brave
The plash and dash, wave after wave,
And out of the depth of Kuroshiu current
Pull up nets of bouncing catch?
When net is heavy and catch is plenty,
Well for the full hold, well for you.
When net is light, O well for those
Poor survivors, well, for the fish.
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