Secrets, A Collection of Short Stories

Born in Henan and graduated from National Northeastern University in Shenyang. He moved to Taiwan in the late 1940s, where he worked for the Anti-Communist Youth League and held various teaching posts. A prolific writer of essays, mostly about Taiwan's social problems, he spent ten years in prison because of a cartoon he drew in the China Daily News. He also writes fiction and books on Chinese history, but is probably most famous for his essay "The Ugly Chinaman". Author and human rights activist Bo Yang, which is his pen name, was born in Henan, China in 1920. He immigrated to Taiwan in 1948 and started writing a political commentary column in the Independent Evening News in 1960. In 1967, he was arrested for criticising President Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo. He spent nine years in prision and during that time he wrote numerous works on Chinese history. His best-known books include The Alien Realm, Yiyu (Foreign Lands), Soy Vat Culture, Shaking the Soy Vat and The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture. He was the founding president of the Taiwan chapter of Amnesty International and established the Human Rights Education Foundation to promote human rights education in Taiwan. He died of respiratory failure on April 29, 2008.