Lu Xun's revolution: writing in a time of violence

Abstract

Widely recognized as modern China's preeminent man of letters, Lu Xun (1881--1936) is revered as voice of a nation's conscience, a writer comparable to Shakespeare and Tolstoy in stature and influence. Gloria Davies's portrait now gives readers a better sense of this influential author by situating man Mao Zedong hailed as the sage of modern in his turbulent time and place. In Davies's vivid rendering, we encounter a writer passionately engaged with heady arguments and intrigues of a country on eve of revolution. She traces political tensions in Lu Xun's works which reflect larger conflict in modern Chinese thought between egalitarian and authoritarian impulses. During last phase of Lu Xun's career, so-called years on left, we see how fiercely he defended a literature in which people would speak for themselves, and we come to understand why Lu Xun continues to inspire debates shaping China today. Although Lu Xun was never a Communist, his legacy was fully enlisted to support Party in decades following his death. Far from apologist of political violence portrayed by Maoist interpreters, however, Lu Xun emerges here as an energetic opponent of despotism, a humanist for whom empathy, not ideological zeal, was key to achieving revolutionary ends. Limned with precision and insight, Lu Xun's Revolution is a major contribution to ongoing reappraisal of this foundational figure.