Ma Tianji
Abstract
Chen Yingzhen 陳映真 (1937–2016) was a singular figure in modern Taiwanese history: a celebrated literary writer, a committed Marxist political activist, and a devout Christian thinker. This article explores how these three identities interwove throughout Chen’s life and work. It begins by situating Chen’s life in the historical context of post-war Taiwan – from authoritarian rule to democratization – highlighting how his Marxist convictions and Christian heritage formed his staunch Chinese national identity and opposition to both colonialism and capitalist modernity. It then examines Chen’s political stance and his critiques of society and the church, showing how these critiques are reflected in his fiction’s portrayal of moral struggle and social injustice. Next, it analyzes the theological underpinnings of Chen’s thought: the role of Christian belief as a moral motivation in his writings, and the tensions and synergies between his eschatological faith and his revolutionary political vision. These themes are brought into focus through a close reading of his novella Zhao Nandong, in which political idealism, the Christian ethos of love and sacrifice, and innovative narrative form intersect. The concluding section offers a reevaluation of Chen Yingzhen’s legacy, considering how his integration of Marxist and Christian worldviews – once deemed “out of season” – now illuminates broader questions of faith, social justice, and national identity in Sinophone literature.
1. Introduction
Born into a Christian family, the Taiwanese author Chen Yingzhen once recalled in his essay “The Whip and the Lamp” a moment of lasting significance, when his father, with solemn tenderness, said to him: “My child, from now on you must always remember: First, you are a child of God; second, you are a child of China; and then, ah, you are my child.” Moved to tears, Chen received these words as a lifelong exhortation. For him, “God” came to mean “truth” and “love,” and when joined with the notion of “China” that followed, these four – God, truth, love, and China – formed the essential constellation for understanding Chen Yingzhen’s life and work.
“I am a Chinese person born in Taiwan, […] and I am proud to be a Chinese writer.” With this heated protest to a Chinese state news agency’s report in the 1990s, Chen declared an identity that startled many in his homeland. Chen’s furious insistence on being labeled a “Chinese writer” – and not merely a writer from Taiwan – exemplified the passion and paradoxes that defined his life. A leftist literary icon who spent years in prison for subversive activities, Chen was also a lifelong Christian raised by a Protestant minister father. He championed Marxist revolution and Chinese unification with almost religious zeal, yet he derived that very zeal partially from a Christian moral vision. In the politically charged landscape of Cold War Taiwan, Chen Yingzhen was a rebel with two causes: the liberation of his people in this world, and fidelity to a transcendent Kingdom not of this world. How did Chen reconcile these commitments? How did a Marxist and Chinese nationalist also remain a man of Christian faith? And how are these intertwined allegiances reflected in his fiction and essays? This study seeks to answer such questions by examining the interwoven strands of Chen’s identity – literary, political, and theological – and their manifestation in his work.
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