ABSTRACT
A CHENG (Ah Cheng) 阿城（1949-) The pen name of writer Zhong Acheng 鐘阿城 who came to prominence in the mid 1980s with the publication of his short novel The King o f Chess in 1984 followed by The King o f Trees and The King o f Children (both 1985). The last was made into an acclaimed film by Chen Kaige in 1986. Ah Cheng was born into a privileged Beijing family which was rocked by the Anti-Rightist Movement and the Cultural Revolution. Like most other educated youths Ah Cheng was sent down to the countryside as part of the Cultural Revolution and spent most of his decade of exile (he returned to Beijing in 1979) in the minority area of Xishuangbanna, in the far south west near the border with Laos. His cultured family background and knowledge of traditional literature and philosophy led him to develop skills as a storyteller in Xishuangbanna to supplement his income. He also developed artistic skills (producing a wellknown sketch of Zhou Enlai during the anti-Gang of Four protests of 1976，later published in the first issue of the literary journal Today) and on the strength of that returned to Beijing as an art editor. In 1986 he went to the USA and settled in California. His stories, on the theme of educated youth in the Cultural and post-Cultural Revolution period, are noted for their Daoist influence，their respect for traditional cultural values and, although less overtly dissident than the works of many of his peers, their rejection of the voluntarist excesses of Maoism in favour of a gentler, more spiritual and more ecological existence. Ah Cheng, Three Kings，trans. and introd. by Bonnie M cD ougall (Collins Harvill, 1990).
