About the Author
Tsao Yu is the pen-name of Wan Chia-pao. He was born in 1910 in Chienchiang County in the province of Hupeh and educated at the Nankai Secondary School in Tientsin and Tsinghua University in Peking. It was during his school days that his passionate interest in drama developed, for tic not only acted and directed but also wrote plays himself. His first great work, Thunderstorm, was written in 1933 in his last year as an undergraduate. After graduation be stayed on at the university as a research student; later, he taught in the National Drama Institute and the Futan University. In 1945 he was awarded a fellowship and went to the United States for a year. On his return he became script-writer and film director at the Wenhua Studios in Shanghai.

After liberation, he took part in the World Peace Congress held in Czechoslovakia in 1949. He is at present vice-president of the Central Theatrical Institute and Director of the Peking People's Art Theatre. He is also a deputy to the National People's Congress, to which be was elected in 1954.
His other plays include Sunrise (1935), Wilderness (1936), Transformation (1940), Peking Man (1941), The Family (adapted from Pa Chin's novel of the same title in 1941) and Bright Skies (t954).