Lu Xun

Lu Xun, the pen name of Zhou Shuren, was a Chinese writer who lived from 1881 to 1936 and is regarded as a leading figure of modern Chinese literature, working as a novelist, essayist, literary critic, translator and political commentator known for a sharp, satirical style. Born into a declining family of landlords and scholar-officials in Shaoxing, he initially studied medicine in Japan before abandoning it for literature. In 1918 he pioneered the New Culture Movement by publishing Diary of a Madman, the first Chinese novel written in vernacular rather than literary Chinese, and he became increasingly engaged with leftist politics through the 1920s and 1930s, with his work later canonized in the People's Republic of China owing in part to Mao Zedong's high regard for him.