Lao She

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Authors

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Lao She

Full Name:	Shu Qingchun
Born:	February 3, 1899 Beijing, Qing Empire
Died:	August 24, 1966 Beijing, China
Occupation:	Writer
Nationality:	Chinese
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Biography

Shu Qingchun, known by his pen name Lao She, was a Chinese novelist and dramatist. He was a writer of 20th-century Chinese literature, known for his novel Rickshaw Boy and the play Teahouse. He was of Manchu ethnicity, and his works are known for their vivid use of the Beijing dialect.

Lao She was a writer whose life span covered all stages of modern China: the Qing dynasty, the Republic and the Communists.

Lao She was greatly influenced by the writer Charles Dickens. Born during the end of the Qing dynasty, Lao She was from the Manchu Sumuru clan and experienced the Boxer Rebellion first hand as well as the atrocities committed by the Eight-Nation Alliance, a scarring experience for him. During the Cultural Revolution, Shu was tortured by the Red Guards, causing him to become insane. Shu either died by drowning himself or was murdered.

In 1913, he was admitted to the Beijing Normal Third High School (now Beijing Third High School), but had to leave after several months because of financial difficulties. In the same year, he was accepted to Beijing Normal University, from which he graduated in 1918.

Between 1918 and 1924, Lao She was involved as administrator and faculty member at a number of primary and secondary schools in Beijing and Tianjin. He was highly influenced by the May Fourth Movement (1919). He stated, "The May Fourth Movement gave me a new spirit and a new literary language. I am grateful to the May Fourth Movement, as it allowed me to become a writer."

He went on to serve as lecturer in the Chinese section of the School of Oriental Studies (now the School of Oriental and African Studies) at the University of London from 1924 to 1929, living in Notting Hill for most of that period. During his time in London, he absorbed a great deal of English literature (especially Dickens, whom he adored) and began his own writing. His later novel Mr Ma and Son, about a Chinese father and his son in London, drew on these experiences. Up until that time, he had signed his works with his courtesy name She Yu. In his first novel "Old Zhang's Philosophy", first published on Fiction Monthly, he first adopted the pen name Lao She.