Cao Yu, formerly known as Wan Jiabao, was admitted to Nankai Middle School at the age of 13, and joined the school's drama troupe, from which he began his drama career. 1928, Cao Yu was sent to Nankai University and went to Tsinghua University to study western literature.

After graduating from college, Cao Yu entered the Tsinghua Research Institute. During his tenure, he published the first and most contacted work Thunderstorm. Because of the sensation of this work, Cao Yu formally entered the ranks of drama creation, and later published Sunrise and Yuan Ye, which are the most representative trilogy of Cao Yu.

During the Anti-Japanese War, Cao Yu devoted himself to patriotic drama creation, and his Metamorphosis became a classic in China's anti-Japanese war drama, while Peking Man was called another peak of Cao Yu's creation.

Major achievements

Cao Yu applied the writing skills of modern European drama to China's drama creation, showing the social reality of China. Create distinctive and unique characters, especially female images; He has made great achievements in making the script full of passion and poetry, especially in the tragic art.

Great achievements have been made in processing spoken English in life into literary language, making the art of dialogue perfect and making the script readable and performable at the same time. The appearance of his Thunderstorm indicates that China has the first work that can be compared with foreign classic dramas.

As an outstanding drama educator, Cao Yu has made immortal contributions to promoting the prosperity and development of Chinese literature and drama. From 1936 to 194 1, Cao Yu taught in the first national drama school in China for six years, and trained a batch of drama professionals for China.