-------        \    |__      __---    
              |          ---  _|_       __|__+--+
            --|--         /  |   |       /|\ |  |
              |          /|\ | _ |      / | \+--+
          ---------       |  _- -_        |      


Wang Cheng-ho (1940--), a Taiwanese, received his education
from National Taiwan University and was from 1972 to 1973
Visiting Artist at the University of Iowa's International
Writing Program.  Like Ch'i-teng Sheng, he had most of his
early stories published in Wen-hsueh chi-k'an, including "An
Oxcart for Dowry" ("Chia-chuang i-niu-ch'e", which appeared
in No. 3, 1967).  With this story, he had distinguished
himself from other Taiwanese writers by using a local
dialect largely made up by himself to achieve a comic effect
for his characters.  To be sure, other Taiwanese writers
such as "Ch'en Ying-chen and Huang Ch'un-ming have from time
to time used local expressions to give an authentic
atmosphere to the locale of their stories, but never as
profusely as Wang does in this particular story.

   In the author's own translation, the names of the
characters are "rendered" into English equivalents rather
than transliterated.  Thus Wan-fa becomes "Prosperity",
Chien becomes "Screw", and Ah-hao is "Nice".  He has also
taken some liberty with the original.  For the sake of
consistency and total faithfulness, I have romanized the
personal names and retranslated some sentences.

   During the past few years, Wang Chen-ho's interest seems
to have shifted from fiction to dramatic writing.  His
latest effort, "Hoping You Will Return Soon" ("Wang-ni
tsao-kuei"), a one-act play, was published in Wen-chi, No.
2, 1973.  His early stories are collected in The Red Lonely
Palace-flowers (Chi-mo hung, 1970).


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Chinese Stories from Taiwan: 1960 - 1970
Columbia University Press (1976), New York.

This book is available at the Central Library (Call no: PL 2653.Lau)