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Biography Ke Yan
Ke Yan: born 1929, is a Chinese writer.
Ke Yan was born in the province Guangdong. Her father was a writer and a translator and she has stated that she was first inspired by him to start writing. She is a playwright, novelist and poet. She is famous for her textbooks and children's literature.
Also she has written lyrics and a script for a television program. Throughout her life she has held several positions. like vice Chief-Editor of Poetry Magazine, Editor of People's Literature, Vice-President of the Children's Educational Society of Beijing, and National Committee member of the Chinese Federation of the Art and Literature Circles.
Famous amongst her work is Stories of a Little Soldier and Little Muddleheaded Aunt.
Writer Ke Yan started her career 50 years ago as a writer of children's literature. Thirty years later, she wrote the reportage--for adults this time--Cancer Does Not Mean Death. This work, written by a person who did not have cancer, was nonetheless regarded by numerous cancer patients as a lighthouse, reawakening their hope for life. In 2004, 20 years later, the 76-year-old Ke Yan devoted yet another book to cancer patients, Cancer Club. In Cancer Club, the reader can experience a life in which cruelty mingles with gentleness, despair with hope, and distress with dreams.
Ke Yan has got acquainted with a good number of cancer patients and she was often moved to tears by their stories. She said: "There is a foreigner named Helen Keller whose story has deeply moved countless people, but what I want to tell you is that there are millions of Chinese stories around us that are just as inspiring."
Ke Yan, a Manchu, was born to a family of railway servants in Zhengzhou, Henan in July 14, 1929. She took up writing in1998. Instead of her original name, Feng Kai, she uses Ke Yan as her pen name. "In ancient Chinese, Ke means green trees and Yan stands for huge and hard rocks. The reason I use it as my pen name is that I realize writing is a very difficult job so I decided to take root in the earth and strive hard to move upwards in my life so that my works can be full of vitality like trees growing on the rocks."
Her major works include children's literature (The Story of a Little Soldier, Selected Children's Poems by Ke Yan,) lyric poetry, (Where Are You, Premier Zhou, Lei Feng), reportages (Bazaar Letters, The Captain, Beauty Pursuer, Cancer Does Not Mean Death), plays, (Blind Date, Remember, Please Remember), novelettes, (High-pressure Oxygen Cabin, Appear To Be Ruthless) as well as novels and scripts for television series (The World Regained, Bright Moon in an Alien Land).
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