Gu Cheng

Gu Cheng (simplified Chinese: 顾城; traditional Chinese: 顧城; September 24, 1956 – October 8, 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 was born in Beijing on 24 September 1956. He was the son of a prominent party member and the army poet Gu Gong. At the age of twelve, his family was sent 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.