LU HSÜN (1947)

Pseudonym of CHOU SHU-JEN.

A major figure in Chinese literature of the 20th century.

Although he originally studied to be a doctor, he became associated with the nascent Chinese literary movement inn 1918 ehen at the urging of friends he published his famous short story A Madman´s Diary. Modelled after Gogol´s tale of the same title the work accused the traditional Confuncian culture of being a "man-eating"; as the forst Western-style story written wholly in Chinese it was a tour de force that attracted immediate attention and helped gain acceptance for the short-story form as an effective literary vehicle.

The True Story of Ah Q is his representative work. A mixture of humour and pathos it is a repudiation of the old order; it added the word Ah Qism to the modern Chinese language as a term characterizing the Chinese penchant to rationalize defeat as a "spiritual victory". 

Other stories in Na-han (1923, Call to Arms), the work that established his reputation as the leading Chinese writer, P´ang-huang (1926, Hesitation) and his various symbolic prose-poems, reminiscences and retold classical tales all reveal a modern sensibility informed by a sardonic humour and biting satire.

Althoug Lu Hsün is better known for his works of fiction, he was also a master of the prose essay, a vehicle he utilized more and more toward the end of his life.

His Chung-kuo hsiao shih-lueh (Outline History of Chinese Fiction) and companion compilations of classical fiction remain standard works.

Translations, largely from the Russian also occupy a large place in his complete works.

Forced by political circumstances to flee Peking in 1926 he eventually found sanctuary in the Shanghai International Settlement. Increasingly pessimistic about the political future of China in the 1930s he began to see the Chinese Communists as the only salvation for his country. Although he himself refused to join the party he became a fellow traveller recruiting many of his fellow writers and countrymen to the Communist cause. Considered a revolutionary hero by present-day Chinese Communists, Lu Hsün was adopted posthumously as the exemplar of Socialist Realism by the Chinese Communist movement.