Lu Xun
3 min readLu Xun and His Youth
Lu Xun or Lu Hsin（Wade-Giles）（September 25，1881～0ctober 19，1936），the pen name of Zhou Shuren，has been considered one of the most influential Chinese writers of the 20th century and the founder of modern vernacular literature.
Highly influential in 20th century Chinese history，his literary works exerted a substantial influence after the May Fourth Movement.He was also a noted translator.
Born in Shaoxing，Zhejiang province，Lu Xun was first named Zhou Zhangshu and later renamed Shuren，literally，”to nurture a person”.His family was wel1-educated and of the gentry class，yet somehow the family ended up being poor by the time he was born.His father’s chronic illness and death in his adolescence persuaded Zhou to take up medical science.Distrusting traditional Chinese medicine（which in his time was often practiced by charlatans），he set out to study Westernized medicine in Tohoku High Medical Institute（nowadays part of Tohoku University）in Sendai，Japan.
Quitting his studies and returning to China in 1909，he became a lecturer in the Peking University and began writing.
Career
In May 1918，he used his pen name for the first time and published the first major baihua short story A Madman’s Diary，which was to become one of his two mostfamed works.With its criticism of many old Chinese traditions and family rules，it became a cornerstone of the May Fourth Movement.Another of his well-known longer stories，The True Story of Ah Q，was published in the 1920s.The latter became his most famous work.Both works were included in his short story collection Na Han or Call to Arms，published in 1923.
Between 1924 to 1926，Lu wrote his masterpiece of ironic reminiscences，Zhaohua Xishi（published 1928），as well as the prose poem collection Ye Cao（published 1927）.Lu Xun also wrote some of the stories to be published in his second short story collection Pang Huang in 1926.In 1930 Lu Xun published Zhongguo Xiaoshuo Shilue，a comprehensive overview of Chinese fiction and one of the landmark pieces of twentieth-century Chinese literary criticism.
His other important works include volumes of translations-notably from Russian（he particularly admired Nikolai Gogol and made a translation of Dead Souls，and his own first story is inspired by Gogo1）-discursive writings like Re Feng，and many other works such as prose essays，which number around 20 volumes or more.As a left-wing writer，Lu played an important role in the history of Chinese literature.
His books were and remain highly influential and popular even today，particularly amongst youths.Lu Xun’s works also appear in high school textbooks in Japan.He is known to Japanese by the name Rojin.
Lu Xun was also the editor of several left-wing magazines such as New Youthand Sprouts.He was the brother of another important Chinese political figure and essayist Zhou Zuoren.Though highly sympathetic of the Chinese Communist movement，Lu Xun never joined the Communist Party of China.Because of his leanings，and of the role his works played in the subsequent history of the People’s Republic of China，Lu Xun’s works were banned in Taiwan until late 1980s.He was among the early supporters of the Esperanto movement in China.
Style and Legacy
Lu Xun’s style is wry，incisive and often sardonic in his societal commentary.
His mastery of the vernacular language，coupled with his expertise with tone-often refusing to occupy any easy position-make some of his works truly difficult to translate.Lu Xun’s importance to modern Chinese literature lies in the fact that he contributed significantly to every modern literary genre except the novel during his lifetime.
Thought
Lu Xun，hailed as“commander of China’s cultural revolution”by Mao Zedong，is typically regarded as the most influential Chinese writer who was associated with the May Fourth Movement.He produced harsh criticism of social problems in China，particularly in his analysis of the”Chinese national character.”He has often been considered to have had leftist leanings.Called by some a“champion of commonhumanity，”he helped bring many fellow writers to support communist thought，though he never took the step of actually joining the Communist Party.It should be remarked，however，that throughout his work the individual is given more emphasis over collectivistic concerns.
