Why it is the end of the road for The Ugly Chinaman

Late Taiwanese author Bo Yang gained notoriety with his harsh critique of how Chinese viewed their own culture and the country’s modernisation

There will be no further editions after contracts expire in 2024, as widow says book has served its purpose

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Bo Yang with his wife Chang Hsiang-hua, who has also refused requests for excerpts from The Ugly Chinaman to be included in school textbooks. Photo: Weibo

Published: 1:54pm, 19 Nov 2021Updated: 1:54pm, 19 Nov 2021

The widow of late Taiwanese author Bo Yang has decided to stop publishing The Ugly Chinaman, a controversial book critical of Chinese culture and national characters.

Chang Hsiang-hua, a writer, poet and teacher, has decided to permanently suspend publication of The Ugly Chinaman after existing contracts expire in 2024, according to Taiwan’s China Times newspaper.

This came after Chang repeatedly rejected requests to include excerpts of the book in Taiwan’s Chinese-language curriculum, citing the “inappropriateness” of its content as well as the anti-mainland sentiment in the island’s school system.

Who was Bo Yang?

Bo Yang was the pen name of Guo Yidong, a Taiwanese writer, historian, philosopher and human rights activist who died in 2008 at the age of 88.

Born in Kaifeng, in central China’s Henan province, he moved in the 1940s to Taiwan, where his satirical essays earned him a reputation as a social critic. He became a political prisoner for 10 years during the martial law era in Taiwan, after being arrested in 1968 when his writings were deemed as a veiled attack on Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo.