Thornton Niven Wilder,1897-1975出生在美国威斯康辛州的麦迪逊城,因其父历任美国驻香港与上海总领事,其童年时期在上述两地均曾逗留。1926年他获得灭国普林斯顿大学的法国文学硕士学位,出版了首部小说。1930年,他在纽约观看了梅兰芳的演出后深受影响,将京剧舞台上无布景和极少道具的布置、象征性的摹拟动作以及时空自由转换等手法应用到自己的戏剧创作中, Thornton Niven Wilder, 1897-1975 Born in Madison, Wisconsin, USA, his father spent time in both of these places because of his father’s previous consul general in Hong Kong and Shanghai. In 1926 he received a master’s degree in French literature from Princeton University and published his first novel. In 1930, after he watched the performance of Mei Lanfang in New York, he was greatly influenced by the application of the techniques of disposition and minimal props on the stage of the Beijing Opera, symbolic imitation and the free-time conversion of time and space to his own drama creation.