Chén Tiānhuá 陳天華 (1875–1906), zì Xīngtái 星台, was a Hunanese revolutionary, publicist, and fiction writer, one of the most impassioned voices of the late-Qīng national awakening movement. CBDB id 81567. CBDB records his birth year as 1875 (Guāngxù 1) and death year as 1905 (Guāngxù 31); however, as CBDB itself notes citing the Qīngdài Rénwù Shēngzú Niánbiǎo 清代人物生卒年表, he died on the twelfth day of the twelfth month of Guāngxù 31, which corresponds to 6 January 1906 by the Western calendar. The date 1906 is followed here.
Born in Xīnhuà 新化 county, Húnán province, Chén came from a modest scholarly family. He travelled to Japan in 1903 to study, where he became deeply involved in anti-Qīng revolutionary circles and wrote his most influential works. His pamphlets Měng Huítóu 猛回頭 (Turn Around Quickly, 1903) and Jǐngshì Zhōng 警世鐘 (The Alarm Bell for the World, 1903) were widely circulated among Chinese students and revolutionaries. He was a founding member of the Huaxinghui 華興會 (1904, with Huáng Xīng 黃興), the precursor to the Tongmenghui 同盟會. He drowned himself off Tokyo on 8 December 1905 (old calendar) in protest against the Japanese government’s restrictions on Chinese students, leaving a passionate testament (juémìng shū 絕命書) calling for national awakening.
His fictional works include Shīzi Hǒu 獅子吼 (The Lion’s Roar) KR4k0225, an unfinished political novel, and the pamphlet narrative Měng Huítóu.