Cong Weixi

Cong Weixi (Traditional Chinese:???, Simplified Chinese:???, Hanyu Pinyin: Cong2 Wei2Xi1, Wade-Giles: Tsong Wei-Hsi), (born April 7, 1933) is a noted contemporary Chinese author and founder of the "daqiang wenxue" (literally, "high wall literature") movement that reflected and brooded on the experiences of those in imprisoned the laogai, or reeducation through labor, system. Highly influential in the post-Mao literary scene, his works exerted a substantial influence on those of later Chinese authors. He was also director of the Writers Publishing House.

Early life

Cong Weixi was born on April 7, 1933 in the town of Daiguantun, in what is today Yutian county, Hebei province, China. His father was the son of a local landlord; he, along with two of his brothers, all attended college, a rare feat in pre-1949 China. When Weixi was born, his father was working in Chongqing as an aerospace engineer. However, when the young Weixi was merely 4 years old, his father was imprisoned by the Kuomintang for expressing pro-Communist sentiments, and died in prison to tuberculosis.

Throughout elementary and middle school, Weixi immersed himself in literature. By the time he was 17, he enrolled in the Beijing Normal School, and began publishing works.

Pre-Laogai Career

Weixi became a teacher and then a journalist. He published two novellas and one novel (七月雨, or The Rains of July) that earned him quite a bit of fame and money. In...
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