Guo Jingming facts for kids

Guo Jingming (Chinese: 郭敬明; pinyin: Guō Jìngmíng; born June 6, 1983), also known as Edward Guo, is a Chinese young adult writer, director, and businessman.

While in high school, Guo began publishing articles online under the pen name "Fourth Dimension." He rose to fame by winning first prize consecutively in the 2001 and 2002 New Concept Writing Competition. After publishing his first novel, On the Edge of Love and Pain (2002), he found commercial success with Ice Fantasy (2003) and established himself as a commercially successful yet critically polarizing writer. His other bestsellers include Rush to the Dead Summer (2006), Cry Me a Sad River (2007), and the Tiny Times trilogy (2008–2012).

As a businessman, Guo founded Island Studio in 2004, publishing Island magazine until 2006. He founded CASTOR in 2006 and Zui Co., Ltd. in 2010. The two companies played a major role in China's young adult market throughout the 2010s, until they merged in 2019. In 2008, Guo joined EE-Media to oversee behind-the-scenes production. Since the 2010s, he has shifted his career focus to being a showrunner, adapting his own works as well as creating original projects, such as Tiny Times (2013–2015), L.O.R.D (2016–2020), My Journey to You (2023) and Fangs of Fortune (2024).

Early life

Guo was born in Zigong, Sichuan province, located in the southwest of China. Guo's father, Cheng Jianwei, is an engineer who works in a state-owned enterprise; his mother, named Zou Huilan, works in a local bank as a clerk. Guo showed strong interest in reading during his early years. His mother bought many books to inspire him in reading, explaining everything until Guo was able to understand. Guo was able to memorize what he read or heard, such as stories that people read to him. Guo was able to recite them after listening to it only once. Guo's mother strongly supported his interest in reading, and let him pick any books he liked in the store.

Guo's writing talent emerged during his middle school years, as he avidly read Chinese literature and Wuxia fiction, particularly works by Jin Yong and Gu Long. This extensive reading taught and inspired him in his own writing, leading Guo to begin submitting to magazines. In 1997, he published his first poem, "Loneliness," in the national magazine Rensheng Shiliuqi. The contemporary poem expresses Guo's personal feelings of melancholy during his school years, for which he received 10 RMB (approximately 1.5 US dollars) as payment from the magazine.

Career

Encouraged by his mother and motivated by the promise of guaranteed university admission for winners, Guo participated in the third and fourth New Concept Writing Competitions, a national writing contest sponsored by Mengya magazine. To win first place, he studied nearly all the winning entries from the previous two New Concept competitions, analyzing the judges’ preferred style. He filled out seven application forms and submitted seven 5,000-word essays. He works, "Script" and "Our Last Song on Campus," eventually won the first prize for both of the contests in 2001 and 2002 respectively. However, by the time Guo participated in the competition, guaranteed university admission was no longer offered to winners. With his less-than-stellar Gaokao scores, he missed his dream school Xiamen University, instead going to Shanghai University, where he majored in TV and film production until he eventually dropped out. After publishing his first novel, On the Edge of Love and Pain (2002), Guo found great commercial success in his fantasy novel Ice Fantasy (2003), which he finished during the college summer break. Since then, he established himself as one of the best-selling writers in China.

Transporting from the small town of Zigong to Shanghai, Guo realized that "he was caught up by the abundance of the city". He decided to stay in Shanghai "with nothing and no one to help me except for the limited fame I gained through the writing contest". On Christmas Day in 2003, Guo gathered five of his close friends in the newest McDonald's in Shanghai, decided to establish a writing studio called "Island." Since then, Guo has launched his writing and business career, becoming one of China's most successful publishers and managers in the young adult literature market. In 2006, at 23, Guo became the youngest member of China Writers Association.

Notable works

Ice Fantasy

Guo's The Ice Fantasy (幻城) was initially serialized in the magazine Mengya and published as a book in 2003. It is a fantasy novel revolving around two princely brothers.

Tiny Times

A series of books containing 3 books entitled 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, following a group of young girls on their journey as they navigate between relationships, work and friendship in Shanghai.

Legend of Ravaging Dynasties

A series of books in memory of Guo's 10-year writing career.

Rush to the Dead Summer

A romance novel about several young people.

Filmography

• Tiny Times (2013)
• Tiny Times 2 (2013)
• Tiny Times 3 (2014)
• Tiny Times 4 (2015)
• Ice Fantasy (2016)
• YES! MR FASHION (2016)
• L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties (2016)
• Rush to the Dead Summer (2017)
• Cry Me A Sad River (2018–2019)
• L.O.R.D: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties 2 (2020)
• The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity (2020)

See also

In Spanish: Guo Jing-ming para niños