Shen Dehong, best known by the pen name of Mao Dun, was a Chinese novelist, essayist, journalist, playwright, literary and cultural critic. He was highly celebrated for his realist novels, including Midnight, which depicts life in cosmopolitan Shanghai. Mao was one of the founders of the Chinese Communist Party and participated in a number of left-wing cultural movements during the 1920s and 1930s. He was the editor-in-chief of Fiction Monthly and helped lead the League of Left-Wing Writers. He formed a strong friendship with fellow left-wing Chinese author Lu Xun. From 1949 to 1965, Mao served as the first Minister of Culture in the People's Republic of China.
Mao Dun as pictured in The Most Recent Biographies of Chinese Dignitaries
Mao Dun Memorial at his home town Wuzhen
The primary school Lizhi College where Mao Dun studied in Wuzhen
A bust of Mao Dun in his former residence in Wuzhen, Zhejiang.
Lu Xun, born Zhou Zhangshou, was a Chinese writer, literary critic, lecturer, and state servant. He was a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. Writing in vernacular and Literary Chinese, he was a short story writer, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist, poet, and designer. In the 1930s, he became the titular head of the League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai during republican-era China (1912–1949).
Lu in 1930
Childhood residence of Lu Xun in Shaoxing
An execution scene, possibly viewed by Lu Xun in 1905
1918 printed edition of "Diary of a Madman", collection of the Beijing Lu Xun Museum