Chiung Yao [163.com]

Taiwan's acclaimed romance novelist Chiung Yao was granted membership of the Chinese Society of Film and Literature following her formal application to join the organization in Beijing on December 21.

The move made her the only Taiwanese member the society has ever had.

At the members' meeting, Wang Hailin, the society's vice-president, read out Chiung's application, where she urged more stringent protection of copyrights.

The popular writer has been involved in a lawsuit against Yu Zheng, a Chinese mainland screenwriter who plagiarized one of her works.

Around 100 Chinese screenwriters signed a petition to support Chiung and her case.

On December 18, an appeals court in Beijing upheld the original verdict last December, which ordered Yu and four companies involved in the TV show The Palace: The Lost Daughter to pay 5 million yuan (U.S. $771,600) to Chiung. Yu was also ordered to issue a public apology for copying her work.

The drama's plot was almost identical to that of Chiung's novel Plum Blossom Scar. Yu never asked for permission to use her work.

Hunan Satellite TV broadcast the TV series in the Chinese mainland in 2014.

Chiung, born Chen Zhe in 1938 in Chengdu, the capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province, is based in Taiwan.

Many of her works have been made and remade into movies and TV series. Films based on her novels have been produced in Taiwan since the 1970s and were very popular during their time.  

My Fair Princess is perhaps the best known and most popular of her recent novels, owing to the popularity of the 1998–1999 TV series that the novel spawned.

(Source: people.com.cn/Translated and edited by Women of China)

By Li XiazhiEditor: Frank Zhao(Women of China)