Chûng Lî-fò

Life & Legacy

Chung Li-ho (Chinese: 鍾理和 (pinyin Zhong Lihe), Hakka transliteration: Chûng Lî-fò or Tsûng Li-fô) December 15, 1915 – August 4, 1960, was a writer from Taiwan famous mainly for fiction. He was a Liudui Hakka (Chinese: 六堆客家人), born in Gaoshu Township, Pingtung in 1915, who moved with his parents to a newly purchased fruit and coffee plantation in Meinong in around 1932. Eloping with a woman because their same-surname relationship was taboo in their community, he resided in Japanese-occupied China – Shenyang and Beijing – between 1938 and 1946. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis at the age of 44 in Meinong whilst revising his last and possibly finest work, a novella entitled "Rain" (Chinese: 雨).