Ke Yunlu

(né Bao Guolu and Yang Xueke)

b. Beijing

Writers

Ke Yunlu is the pen name of a husband—wife writing team that received widespread attention in the post-Mao era with novels that explored the effects of reform on daily life. Their nom de plume combines characters of their real names. The high-school sweethearts at Beijing 101 High, an elite boarding school for the children of government officials before the Cultural Revolution, were both sent to Shanxi province for re-education in 1968, when they started writing together in the remote village. Their first novel, New Star (Xinxing, 1986), portrays a rural county leader during Deng Xiaoping’s economic reform era in the early 1980s, while their second, Nights and Days (Ye yü zhou, 1986), based on similar themes, brought them national fame. Their later work engages the themes of spirituality, philosophy and science.

The publication of Great Qigong Master (Da Qigongshi) in 1989 documents a person’s search for mystical knowledge and received widespread popular acclaim. During the bans on Qigong practices, the book was withdrawn from publication, though old copies were widely circulated. Their novel The New Age (1991) offered interpretations of Laozi’s Daodejing [Book of the Way and its Power] and the Bible. Ke Yunlu has also served as editor(s) of the International Qigong Daily. In all their writing, whether about rural change, the search for spirituality, or alternative healing, their examination of belief has raised key questions for many Chinese about the meaning of life in late socialism.

Further reading

Ke, Yunlu and Zhang, Xianglian (1985). Prize Winning Stories from China 1980–1981. San Francisco: China Books and Periodicals.

Li, Liyan and Chaoji, Huangyan (1997). Dui ‘Ke Yunlu xinji bingxue’ yü ‘Zhongguo qigong jiuda jishu’ di piping. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui chibanshe.

NANCY N.CHEN