Taiwanese romance author Chiung Yao dies at 86

Well-known Taiwanese romance novelist Chiung Yao has died at the age of 86 in an apparent suicide.

The local fire department said on Wednesday (Dec 4) that Chiung was found dead in her home in New Taipei City.

Her son said she had left a note instructing her secretary to check on her at noon, news outlet TVBS reported. Despite the secretary calling for an ambulance immediately after discovering her body, Chiung was pronounced dead at the scene.

Born Chen Che in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu in 1938, she later adopted the pen name Chiung Yao.

She fled to Taiwan with her family in 1949 after Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist forces lost a civil war to Mao Zedong's fighters.

She began writing as a child, and her first novel was published when she was 25, local media reported.

A number of her novels were turned into television series, which were a huge hit in both Taiwan and China, especially the 18th-century period drama My Fair Princess.

Set in the Qing dynasty, it tells the story of a destitute girl who becomes a princess.

Chiung's late second husband Ping Hsin-tao was the founder of Crown Publishing, the printer of most of her books. He died in 2019 aged 92. The publisher declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

Chiung Yao's final five novels were published in 2020, according to a Taiwanese book-selling website.

In a pre-recorded video posted on her Facebook page, she said: "I am the spark, and I have burned as hard as I can."

Tsai Mei-tzu, a professor of Chinese literature at the National Cheng Kung University, said: "In the drawers of every literary young girl in 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, there were a few Chiung Yao novels tucked away, hidden from the fear of being confiscated by teachers.

"Even after the 1990s, Chiung Yao's old-fashioned romances did not fade away. The classical undertones and dramatic tension continued to sustain her empire of love stories."