Zhou Guoping

Zhou Guoping is a modern Chinese author, poet, scholar, translator, philosopher, and research fellow at the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
As of 2017, Zhou had published more than 20 books, some in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea.

Biography

Zhou was born in Shanghai, where he grew up and attended Shanghai High School. After he graduated from Peking University in 1967, Zhou worked on a Hunan farm for one and a half years. He was later relocated to work in the Tzeyuan town in Guangxi, where he married his first wife, Minzi.
In 1978, he left Guangxi and attended the Institute of Philosophy of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where he received a masters degree and a PhD.
In the spring of 1980 Zhou's first marriage ended. He then married Xiang Lingyu. When Zhou was 43, he had his first daughter Niuniu, who was diagnosed with and died from a rare cancer, Retinoblastoma. His second marriage ended soon after Niuniu's death.
In September 1997, Zhou married Guo Hong, who was twenty years younger than him. Together they had a daughter, Jiujiu.
Zhou caused controversy in 2015 by a Weibo post which said that women were beautiful when cleaning the house or feeding babies, which led to him being accused of having straight man cancer.

Selected publications

Niuniu: the Reading Notes of a Father was written after the death of Niuniu from retinoblastoma.
Men and Eternity is a book of short essays.
The Starry Sky of Thoughts is a book of essays.
Souls Only Walk Alone
Freestyle is a book of dialogues between Zhou and rock musician Cui Jian.

Controversy

In the Starry Sky of Thoughts, Zhou states that from his viewpoint, the beauty of a woman will inevitably be compromised if she fails to become a good lover, wife, and mother. His words lead to criticisms from numerous feminists. Lu Ping, a feminist activist, argued that Zhou’s words were "not only ignorant about women, but also contained an arrogant attitude from his ivory tower.”