Yang Mo

People’s Republic of China state institutions Marxism–Leninism 1914.8.25.–1995.12.11. ○ Died of illness

Author of The Song of Youth

Born Yang Chengye to a rich Beijing family that later collapsed, she refused the officer her mother had chosen, left home and worked as a teacher and bookshop assistant. She lived with Zhang Zhongxing from 1930, left him and married the underground party member Ma Jianmin. During the war against Japan she worked for the women's national-salvation association on the central Hebei front. In 1952 she became a screenwriter at the Central Film Bureau, and The Song of Youth, begun in 1951 and repeatedly rejected, appeared in 1958 to great success. In the Cultural Revolution she was attacked for the book's petty-bourgeois ideas. She later chaired the Beijing federation of literature and art. Accounts of her joining the party differ between 1936 and a re-registration in 1938. The film star Bai Yang was her sister.

Also known as: Yang Chengye