Writers › Writer / Poet
Guang Weiran
Poet, lyricist and literary critic from Guanghua, Hubei, who wrote the words of the Yellow River Cantata in 1939, set to music by Xian Xinghai.
Mural of the cultural record “Chinese Works for Western Instruments”, which this person is tied to.
Also known as Born Zhang Guangnian · Pen name Hua Fu
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Guang Weiran, born Zhang Guangnian and also writing as Hua Fu, was born on 1 November 1913 at Laohekou in Guanghua, Hubei. He studied Chinese literature at Zhonghua University in Wuchang. In 1935 he wrote the lyric Flowers of May, which spread widely once Yan Shushi set it to music. In March 1939 he completed the poem cycle of the Yellow River Cantata, set by Xian Xinghai and first performed that May. In 1940 he wrote the long narrative poem Qu Yuan, and he went on to a long career as a literary critic; in his last years he produced a parallel-prose rendering of The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. He died in Beijing on 28 January 2002, and the following year his ashes were scattered on the Yellow River.
Life and times
Dates 1913–2002