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Chen Yingzhen

Taiwanese writer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 31, 2026
Entity authorityQ5090967
Source-derived summary

Chen Yingzhen (Chinese: 陳映真; 8 November 1937 – 22 November 2016) was a Taiwanese author. Chen is also notable for having served a prison sentence for "subversive activity" between 1968 and 1973. He was active as writer from the late 1950s until his death in 2016.

The Collected Works of Chen Yingzhen is 15 volumes long, and was published in 1988. Some of his stories were also included in Lucien Miller's Exiles at Home.

Early life

Chen Yingzhen was born Chen Yongshan in northern Taiwan, the son of a devout Christian minister. Despite this, he never was a Christian himself while growing up. He was raised in what became Zhunan, Miaoli, with a twin brother, who died in 1946.

Chen's early years were shaped by the tumult of the Chinese Civil War, the Nationalist government's retreat to Taiwan, and its perpetration of the White Terror. The socio-political turmoil of post-war Taiwan motivated him to address the social realities around him through literature.

Editorial summary

“Chen Yingzhen” enters the record as taiwanese writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Chen, Yingzhen and Taiwanese can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1937, 2016, 1968, 1973—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1937-11-08. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Chen, Yingzhen and Taiwanese.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Chen Yingzhen” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Chen, Yingzhen and Taiwanese provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5090967. VIAF identifies the subject as 59881000. The Library of Congress control number is n82010477. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 2016, 1968 and 1973.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Chen Yingzhen”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Chen Yingzhen primary sources, Chen Yingzhen archive and Chen research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Chen Yingzhen”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Chen Yingzhen” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.