Early life Lu Xun was born in
Shaoxing, Zhejiang. As was common before the 20th century, Lu Xun used several names. His birth name was "Zhou Zhangshou" (). His
courtesy name was "Yushan" (), which he later changed to "Yucai" (). In 1898, before he went to the Jiangnan Naval Academy, he took the given name "Shuren" (), which figuratively means "to be an educated man". The name "Lu Xun ", by which he is most well known internationally, was a
pen name chosen upon the initial publishing of his story "Diary of a Madman" in 1918. By the time Lu Xun was born, the Zhou family had been prosperous for centuries, and had become wealthy through landowning, pawnbroking, and by having several family members promoted to government positions. His paternal grandfather, Zhou Fuqing, was appointed to the Imperial
Hanlin Academy in Beijing, the highest position possible for aspiring civil servants at that time. Zhou's mother was a member of the same landed gentry class as Lu Xun's father, from a slightly smaller town in the countryside (Anqiaotou, Zhejiang; a part of
Tongxiang). Because formal education was not considered socially appropriate for girls, she had not received any education, but she still taught herself how to read and write. The surname Lu Xun () was the same as his mother's. Lu Xun's early education was based on the
Confucian classics, in which he studied poetry, history, and philosophy—subjects which, he later reflected, were neither useful nor interesting to him. Instead, he enjoyed folk stories and opera, including the mythological narratives of the
Classic of Mountains and Seas and the ghost stories told to him by a servant when he was a child. By the time Lu Xun was born, his family's prosperity had already been declining. His father, Zhou Boyi, had been successful at passing the
county-level imperial examinations, the route to wealth and social success in imperial China, but was unsuccessful in writing the more competitive provincial-level examinations (the
juren exam). In 1893 Zhou was discovered attempting to bribe an examination official. Lu Xun's grandfather was implicated, and was arrested and sentenced to beheading for his son's crime. The sentence was later commuted, and he was imprisoned in
Hangzhou instead. After the affair, Zhou was stripped of his position in the government and forbidden to ever again write the civil service examinations. After the family's attempt at bribery was discovered, Zhou engaged in heavy drinking and opium use and his health declined. Local doctors attempted to cure him through a series of expensive quack prescriptions, including monogamous crickets, sugar cane that had survived frost three times, ink, and the skin from a drum. Despite these expensive treatments, Zhou died of an asthma attack in 1896, at the age of 35. but then abandoned pursuing a traditional Confucian education or career. As a consequence of Lu Xun's decision to attend a military school specializing in
Western education, his mother wept, he was instructed to change his name to avoid disgracing his family, After leaving the school, Lu Xun sat for the lowest level of the civil service exams, and finished 137th of 500. He intended to sit for the next-highest level, but became upset when one of his younger brothers died, and abandoned his plans. In 1904, Lu Xun began studying at the
Sendai Medical Academy in northern
Honshu, but remained there for less than two years. He generally found his studies at the school tedious and difficult, partially due to his imperfect Japanese. While studying in Sendai he befriended one of his professors, Fujino Genkurō, who helped him prepare class notes. Because of their friendship Lu Xun was accused by his classmates of receiving special assistance from Fujino. Part of the war was fought on disputed Chinese land.
Lantern slides used in the classroom also featured news items. The girl, Zhu An, had little in common with Lu, was illiterate, and had been subject to
foot binding. Lu Xun married her, but they never had a romantic relationship. Despite that fact, Lu Xun took care of her material needs for the rest of his life. and in 1907 he briefly took Russian lessons. He attempted to found a literary journal with his brother,
New Life, but before its first publication its other writers and its financial backers all abandoned the project, and it failed. In 1909 Lu Xun and his brother published their translations of Western fiction, including Edgar Allan Poe, as
Tales from Abroad, but the book sold only 41 copies of the 1,500 copies that were printed. The publication failed for a number of reasons: it was only sold in Tokyo, which did not have a large Chinese population, and in a single silk shop in Shanghai. Additionally, Lu Xun wrote in Literary Chinese, which was difficult for ordinary people to read. Lu Xun spent these years in traditional Chinese literary pursuits: collecting old books, researching pre-modern Chinese fiction, reconstructing ancient tombstone inscriptions, and compiling the history of his native town, Shaoxing. He explained to an old friend that his activities were not "scholarship", but "a substitute for 'wine and women'". In his personal letters he expressed disappointment about his own failure, China's political situation, and his family's continuing impoverishment. In 1911 he returned to Japan to retrieve his brother, Zuoren, so that Zuoren could help with the family finances. Zuoren wanted to remain in Japan to study French, but Lu Xun wrote that "French... does not fill stomachs". He encouraged another one of his brothers, Jianren, to become a botanist. During the
Yuan Shikai era, Lu Xun helped to develop the rules for the committee in charge of
censoring works of fiction. Other early work consisted of copying books, but he was later appointed Section Head of the Social Education Division, and eventually to the position of Assistant Secretary. Two of his major accomplishments in office were the renovation and expansion of the
National Library of China in Beijing, the establishment of the Natural History Museum, and the establishment of the Library of Popular Literature. Qian replied, "But if a few awake, you can't say that there is no hope of destroying the iron house." Lu Xun recounted the conversation in his short story collection,
Call to Arms. Lu Xun continued writing for the magazine, and produced his most famous stories for
New Youth between 1917 and 1921. These stories were collected and re-published in
Nahan ("
Outcry") in 1923. In 1919, Lu Xun moved his family from Shaoxing to a large compound in Beijing, Some writers have speculated that their relationship may have worsened as a result of issues related to money, that Lu Xun walked in on Zuoren's wife bathing, or that Lu Xun had an inappropriate "relationship" with Zuoren's wife in Japan that Zuoren later discovered. After the falling out with Zuoren, Lu Xun became depressed. In March 1926 there was a mass student protest against the warlord
Feng Yuxiang's collaboration with the Japanese. The protests degenerated into
a massacre, in which two of Lu Xun's students from Beijing Women's College were killed. Lu Xun's public support for the protesters forced him to flee from the local authorities. Later in 1926, when the warlord troops of
Zhang Zuolin and
Wu Peifu took over Beijing, Lu Xun left northern China and fled to
Xiamen. In 1927 Lu Xun was considered for the
Nobel Prize in Literature, for the short story
The True Story of Ah Q, despite a poor English translation and annotations that were nearly double the size of the text. Lu Xun rejected the possibility of accepting the nomination. Later, he renounced writing fiction or poetry in response to China's deteriorating political situation and his own poor emotional state, and restricted himself to writing argumentative essays.
Later career and their son, In 1929, Lu Xun visited his mother, and reported that she was pleased at the news of Xu's pregnancy. After moving to Shanghai, Lu Xun rejected all regular teaching positions (though he sometimes gave guest lectures at different campuses), and for the first time was able to make a living solely as a professional writer, with a monthly income of roughly 500 yuan. He was also appointed by the government as a "specially appointed writer" by the national Ministry of Higher Education, which secured him an additional 300 yuan per month. Lu Xun began to study and identify with
Marxist politics, made contact with local CCP members, and became involved in literary disputes with other leftist writers in the city. In 1930 Lu Xun became one of the co-founders of the
League of Left-Wing Writers, but shortly after he moved to Shanghai other leftist writers accused him of being "an evil feudal remnant", the "best spokesman of the bourgeoisie", and "a counterrevolutionary split personality". The League continued in various forms until 1936, when the constant disputes among its members led the CCP to dissolve it. Lu Xun's political views became distinctly anti-KMT. In 1933 Lu Xun met
Edgar Snow. Snow asked Lu Xun whether there were any Ah Q's left in China. Lu Xun responded, "It's worse now. Now it's Ah Q's who are running the country." Despite the unfavorable political climate, Lu Xun contributed regularly to a variety of periodicals in the 1930s, including
Lin Yutang's humor magazine
The Analects Fortnightly, and corresponded with writers in Japan as well as China. Although he had renounced writing fiction years before, in 1934 he published his last collection of short stories,
Old Tales Retold. In 1936, Lu Xun would meet
Kaji Wataru. A
Japanese dissident who had fled to Shanghai before the
war. And would even employ Kaji as a Japanese translator of his work. After Lu Xun death in 1936, Kaji Wataru would be the only foreigner who served as
pallbearer at Lu Xun's funeral. A month before his death, he wrote: "Hold the funeral quickly... do not stage any memorial services. Forget about me, and care about your own life – you're a fool if you don't." Regarding his son, he wrote: "On no account let him become a good-for-nothing writer or artist."
Death At 3:30 am on the morning of 18 October 1936, the author woke having great difficulty breathing. Dr. Sudo, his physician, was summoned, and Lu Xun was given injections to relieve the pain. His wife was with him throughout that night. Lu Xun died at 5:11 am the next morning, 19 October. Lu Xun's remains were interred in a mausoleum within
Lu Xun Park in Shanghai.
Mao Zedong later made the calligraphic inscription above his tomb. He was survived by his son, Zhou Haiying. == Legacy ==