Mao Dun

Who was Mao Dun?

Mao Dun was the pen name of Shen Dehong, a 20th-century Chinese novelist, cultural critic, and journalist. He was also the Minister of Culture of China from 1949 to 1965. He is renowned as one of the best realist novelists in the history of modern China. His most famous works are Ziye, a grand novel depicting life in cosmopolitan Shanghai, and Spring Silkworms. He also wrote many short stories.

He adopted "Mao Dun", meaning "contradiction", as his pen name to express the tension in the conflicting revolutionary ideology in China in the unstable 1920s. His friend Ye Shengtao changed the first character from 矛 to 茅, which literally means "thatch", to protect him from political persecution.