Yeh Shih-tao
Taiwanese historians
Yeh Shih-tao (Chinese: 葉石濤; pinyin: Yè Shítāo; Wade–Giles: Yeh Shih-t'ao; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ia̍p Se̍k-tô͘; 1925 – 11 December 2008) was a pioneering Taiwanese writer and historian spanning both the Japanese rule and post-war periods, who specialized in the literary history of Taiwan and the lives of ordinary Taiwanese people. His primary focus was on novels and critiques, supplemented by essays and translations, and was considered a seminal figure in Taiwanese literary criticism.
Biography
Yeh Shih-tao was born in Tainan, Taiwan, in 1925 at a time when Taiwan was under Japanese rule. His early writings were in Japanese, but he switched to Chinese after the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek gained control of Taiwan following the end of World War II. He wrote three novels while attending high school, one of which, titled A Letter from Lin (林君來的信), was published in April 1943 as Yeh's debut work. He was arrested by the Chiang Kai-shek regime in 1951 and imprisoned for three years for allegedly harboring "communist agents." After his release from prison, Yeh became a schoolteacher. In 1965, Yen published Youth (青春), which he described as his first serious work since the war ended.
Yeh later served as an adviser of the Teacher Human Rights Advocate Committee in Kaohsiung, and was appointed a national policy adviser to the Chen Shui-bian government. Yeh Shih-tao died of intestinal cancer in Kaohsiung, on 11 December 2008, at the age of 83. He had been continuously hospitalized since February 2008. Yeh was survived by his wife and two sons.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8051215. VIAF identifies the subject as 15672398. The Library of Congress control number is n81076826. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 2008, 1943 and 1951.
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