Guo Moruo

Related Category: Asian Literature: Biographies

or Kuo Mo-jo(both: gwô´ môrhwô´, –zhô´), 1892–1978, Chinese writer and scholar. He co-founded the Creation Society, which promoted a romantic style of writing. His love stories and experiments in free verse, particularly his poetry collection The Goddesses (1921), won immediate popularity. He wrote several historical plays, notably Ch'ü Yüan (1942), about the dissident poet of the 4th-century B.C.; Guo, an avowed Marxist, wrote it while living in territory controlled by the Nationalist Party. He also wrote numerous studies on Chinese archaeology, history, and literature. He served as a prominent government official from 1949 until his death.

See biography by D. T. Roy (1971).