To honor the 113th anniversary of the death of the playwright Cao Yu, the Beijing October Arts and Literature Publishing House has officially launched the Complete Works of Cao Yu. On September 24, the writer Wan Fang, daughter of Cao Yu, said at the release ceremony that the set of works may provide a new channel for her to understand her father from a new perspective.

Cao Yu loved opera at a young age. The 23-year-old young man published his first play Leiyu (Thunderstorm) in 1933 as a college student at Tsinghua University, a work that laid the foundation for his outstanding status in the history of Chinese modern drama and marked the maturity of the genre. Cao Yu has produced more than ten plays in his life, including Richu (Sunrise), Yuanye (The Wilderness), and Beijingren (Peking Man), in addition to Leiyu.

There are 11 volumes of the Complete Works of Cao Yu. The former seven volumes compile 20 plays created and translated by Cao Yu, some incorporating different versions with massive revisions into appendices, compared to those more commonly seen annotations of version differences. The following three volumes chronically compile all novels, poems, and articles by Cao Yu that are available up to date, some never unveiled before. The last volume records his diaries and letters, part of which, also previously unknown to the public, are provided by his families.

Ms. Wan said on the day:"As his daughter, what I know about Cao Yu is first my father and then a playwright. I’m guided and inspired by his plays, where we share the same interests."

She revealed that the complete compilation might provide her with a new channel to "re-know" her father, as she also read some of the contents for the first time. "The compilation enables me to view my father as a multifaceted man whose many aspects I’m not familiar with. I will carefully read it," said Ms. Wan.

It’s known that Cao Yu has made so many revisions to his works that the versions of various times vary a lot. Therefore, the compilation task attaches special importance to the selection of versions. Based on all versions of these works, especially the first ones, representatives of different phases can be picked out. Finally, the best one is compiled into the compilation and meticulously checked and annotated with reference to other versions.  

Translator：LI Xiaochun

Reviewer：WANG Luchun