Lu Xun

(b Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, 25 Sept 1881; d Shanghai, 19 Oct 1936). Chinese woodcut-printmaker, writer and critic. Already in childhood his imagination was caught by popular fiction illustrations, which were to resurface in his later writing. His sojourn in Japan (1902-9) was a turning-point, convincing him that literature and art rather than medicine made a nation healthy. From 1912 to 1926 he was employed in the Ministry of Education in Beijing, supervising and coordinating art-related affairs. For the next year he taught at Xiamen University in Fujian Province; later he chaired the Department of Literature at Sun Yat-sen (Zhongshan) University, Guangzhou (Canton). The last ten years (1927-36) of Lu's life in Shanghai were the most productive in terms of publication.

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