Lu Xun

Who was Lu Xun?

Lu Xun or Lu Hsün, was the pen name of Zhou Shuren, one of the major Chinese writers of the 20th century. Considered by many to be the leading figure of modern Chinese literature, he wrote in Vernacular Chinese as well as Classical Chinese. Lu Xun was a fiction writer, editor, translator, critic, essayist and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the Chinese League of the Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai.

Lu Xun's works exerted a very substantial influence after the May Fourth Movement that began around 1916 to such a point that he was highly acclaimed by the Communist regime after 1949. Mao Zedong himself was a lifelong admirer of Lu Xun's works. Though sympathetic to communist ideas, Lu Xun never actually joined the Chinese Communist Party. Like many leaders of the May Fourth Movement, he was primarily a leftist and liberal.