Xu Xu

Xu Xu, aka Hsu Yu (徐訏), was the pen name of Xu Boxu, an important figure in modern Chinese literature. Born in Cixi in the coastal province of Zhejiang, Xu Xu attended Peking University between 1927 and 1932 where he studied philosophy and psychology. In 1932, he moved to Shanghai where he became an associate of Lin Yutang, a liberal and polyglot intellectual who ran a number of successful literary journals. In 1950, Xu Xu left the newly founded People's Republic of China for Hong Kong where he stayed for the rest of his life. Best known as the author of the modern gothic tale Ghost Love or his wartime spy-epic The Rustling Wind, Xu Xu was also a prolific poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic, journal editor, and professor of literature. Many of his popular novels were turned into movies or TV series in post-war Hong Kong and Taiwan. As a writer, editor, and educator, Xu Xu has had a formative impact on a younger generation of post-war writers emerging in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In much of his fiction, and especially in his later works from Hong Kong, Xu Xu explored reality-defying experiences and displayed neo-romantic tendencies, such as aesthetic escapism and mysticism, which place him in the proximity of other modern artists associated with the global revival of romanticism in the 20th century. He was nominated for the 1973 Nobel Prize in Literature.