China Seminar | 8 November 1990

Chinese Intellectuals: Current Portraits

MA Jia

Born in 1953 in Beijing, Ma Jia’s schooling was interrputed by the Great Proletarian Revolution, during which he learned oil painting. In 1969 he was “sent down” to Heilongjiang for six years of reeducation. He then entered Beijing University and majored in Chemistry. After graduation, he joined the art division of the Labor Daily, where he began composing dramas. Since 1982, he has published over ten works in long and medium-length novels and dramas.

Mr. Ma is a member of the Chinese Association of Writers, the Chinese Association of Dramatists, and the Society of the Study of Dramas and Literature of China. His trilogy of the Cultural Revolution is entitled Burial of Heaven, Burial of the Spirit, and Burial of Love. Mr. Ma is visiting at the East-West Center with his wife, an economist, for three months.