▲Qiongyao data map. Picture/Weibo Qiong Yao Super Talk Community "I am a 'spark', and I have tried my best to burn. Now, before the flame is extinguished, I choose this way to go back gracefully." According to reports, on December 4, 2024, Qiong Yao, a writer known as the "godmot

▲Qiong Yao information picture. Picture/Weibo Qiong Yao Super Talk Community

"I am a 'spark', and I have tried my best to burn. Now, before the flame is extinguished, I choose this way to go back gracefully."

According to reports, December 4, 2024 On the same day, Qiong Yao, a writer known as the "godmother of romance", committed suicide at her home in Tamsui, Taiwan, at the age of 86. Before her death, Qiong Yao compared the loss of life to the extinguishing of a flame in her suicide note.

Qiong Yao, who celebrated her 86th birthday on April 20 this year, said on the eve of her birthday that she was old and had limited energy, so she would withdraw from social media platforms. In July this year, the Simplified Chinese version of Qiong Yao 's last novel "The Dream of Plum Blossom Heroes" was released, bringing an end to her writing career of more than 60 years.

For readers in mainland China and viewers of film and television dramas, Qiong Yao is an unavoidable symbol of the times. As early as the 1980s, her novels and film and television adaptations have successively entered the mainland.

was born in the golden age of Chinese culture. Qiong Yao opened the hearts of countless readers with her own writing style. Although she had been popular in Taiwan for more than 20 years when she met mainland readers, she still remains timeless.

As a representative figure of popular literature alongside Jin Yong, Qiong Yao's works are also controversial. Some people are addicted to it and shed tears or laugh at the stories of the characters in the book. Others think her works are too vulgar. Others think from a literary perspective that both the plot and the weak image of the heroine are too cookie-cutter.

But no one can deny that the name Qiong Yao has accompanied several generations of people. Whether you watch it or not, like it or not, she will be the memory of youth for generations.

Qiong Yao was born in Chengdu in 1938. She later moved to Taiwan with her family and started her writing career in middle school. In 1955, she published the novel "Cloud Shadow" under the pen name Xinru. In 1963, she published her first novel "Outside the Window" and became famous.

Qiong Yao's works are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. In addition to the text, they also rely on the power of film and television adaptations. In 1965, Qiong Yao sold the film rights to "Six Dreams". The film was a huge success after its release, and she became obsessed with adapting the novel to the screen. The 1966 Qiong Yao film "Outside the Window" made Brigitte Lin famous.

In 1985, Qiong Yao entered the television industry and launched the TV series "How Many Times the Sunset Is Red". Since then, "Qiong Yao Romance Drama" has become a magic weapon for ratings, and a large number of works have been adapted by TV stations.

Qiong Yao's success is due to the factors of the times. Before the publication of "Outside the Window", her life was not smooth, and she once fell into a teacher-student relationship. The story of "Outside the Window" is based on her own experience. In 1957 and 1958, Qiong Yao failed the college entrance examination twice, but she strengthened her belief in writing for a living.

At that time, Taiwan’s economy was taking off, and people’s demand for popular literature soared. The popular literature market was enough to support Qiong Yao’s writing dream. A large number of literary journals could accommodate her works. The published single volumes were often sold out. The film and television industry was also on the rise. She was very helpful.

In 1988, Qiong Yao returned to the mainland for the first time to visit relatives, and since then she has become an important messenger and beneficiary of cross-strait cultural exchanges. Since then, the "Six Dreams" series including "Wanjun", "Mute Girl" and "Green River Grass", as well as TV series such as "Three Plum Blossom Lanes" and "Yilian Meng" have repeatedly created ratings myths, and also attracted many actors. Become popular.

The two "Huan Zhu Ge Ge" in 1998 and 1999 have become phenomenal works in the history of Chinese television, breaking the historical ratings record; the 2001 "Love in the Rain" is also brilliant.

In Qiong Yao's writing career, "love first" is an eternal theme, and the same is true in her life, although she also encountered criticism because of such pursuit.

Qiong Yao's work style has always changed with life circumstances. Most of her early works were tragedies. For example, "Outside the Window" is quite gloomy. Most of her works written during the period of separation from her first husband ended in tragedy.

In the 1970s, Qiong Yao entered her second marriage, her career was stable, and her work style gradually became clearer. The protagonists were able to resolve their hardships and usher in a happy ending.

Because love is paramount, the protagonists in Qiong Yao's novels are generally idealized and thus appear formulaic. The plot of the novel is not based on reality, but is purely "love can conquer everything".

These problems have largely reduced the depth of Qiong Yao's works, but using love to break through social prejudices, class differences, physical defects and even moral ethics is precisely the charm of popular literature, and it is also a kind of purity - although it is somewhat "off the ground" ”, but still worth cherishing emotionally.

From this point of view, Qiong Yao's writing can also be regarded as the afterglow of the "May Fourth" generation. Because, for East Asian societies that have been bound by ethics for a long time, the pursuit of love is often not only about love itself, but also about freedom.

Many representative works of the "May 4th" generation focus on criticizing the suppression and harm of individuals by ethics and the brutal interference with love and marriage. The pursuit of love has been given the significance of anti-feudal and anti-restraint.

Similarly, Qiong Yao's works also have the same meaning for readers of a certain era. They have become a light in the social transformation period, providing some comfort to the originally single and lacking spiritual world. Therefore, even if Qiong Yao's works are controversial, they can still become symbols of an era.

As for Qiong Yao herself, she persisted in writing about love for 60 years, truly "doing only one thing in her life." Now, this man has "gone back gracefully" and is worthy of the word "legend".

writing/Ye Kefei (columnist)

editing/He Rui

proofreading/Li Lijun