郁达夫 (Yùdáfū): Yu Dafu (1896–1945), modern Chinese writer and poet, founding member of the 创造社 (Creation Society), killed by Japanese military police in Sumatra

Educated in Japan alongside Guo Moruo, Yu's 1921 novella 《沉沦》 stunned May Fourth readers with its open treatment of male sexual frustration and national humiliation. He fled to Indonesia in 1938 to edit anti-Japanese newspapers and was murdered by retreating Japanese troops in September 1945.

culture

His confessional, melancholic 'I-novel' style — heavily influenced by Japanese watakushi-shōsetsu — opened Chinese fiction to first-person introspection. Phrases like '祖国啊,你什么时候才能富强?' from 《沉沦》 are still standard high-school anthology quotes on mainland syllabi.