Death of Lu Xun

Lu Xun died on 19 October 1936 in Shanghai, aged 55. A Chinese writer, Lu Xun was born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, and studied medicine in Japan before deciding that literature could do more to cure the Chinese people. His short story A Madman's Diary, published in 1918, is often regarded as the first modern work of fiction in vernacular Chinese, and his collection Call to Arms includes The True Story of Ah Q, a satire of national complacency. He was also a prolific essayist, translator and critic of tradition, and he supported left-wing writers in Shanghai without joining the Communist Party. After his death in 1936 he was widely praised in China and became a central figure of modern Chinese literature.

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