15 Facts About Zhou Zuoren

Zhou Zuoren was a Chinese writer, primarily known as an essayist and a translator.

Zhou Zuoren was the younger brother of Lu Xun, the second of three brothers.

Zhou Zuoren returned to China in 1911, with his Japanese wife, and began to teach in different institutions.

Meanwhile, Zhou Zuoren made a distinction between "democratic" and "popular" literature by identifying the former as literature that studies human life rather than written for the common people to read.

In 1945, Zhou Zuoren was arrested for treason by the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, stemming from his alleged collaboration with the Wang Jingwei government during the Japanese occupation of north China.

Zhou Zuoren was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment in 1947.

However, during the Cultural Revolution, the People's Literature Publishing House no longer paid royalty to Zhou Zuoren, which used to be his sole source of income.

On May 6,1967, Zhou Zuoren died of a sudden relapse of the illness.

The Chinese scholar Qian Liqun in 2001 published an extensive biography of Zhou Zuoren entitled "Biography of Zhou Zuoren".

Zhou Zuoren called his studies "miscellanies" and penned an essay titled "My Miscellaneous Studies".

In Tokyo, Zhou Zuoren developed interests in mythology, anthropology, and what he called ertongxue.

Zhou Zuoren later became a translator, producing translations of classical Greek and classical Japanese literatures, including a collection of Greek mimes, Sappho's lyrics, Euripides' tragedies, Kojiki, Shikitei Sanba's Ukiyoburo, Sei Shonagon's Makura no Soshi and a collection of Kyogen.

Zhou Zuoren considered his translation of Lucian's Dialogues, which he finished late in his life, as his greatest literary achievement.

Zhou Zuoren was translated the story Ali Baba into Chinese.

Between 1940 and 1943, Zhou Zuoren used Confucianism as a guise to argue that the Chinese never had any "thought problem," as the Japanese so claimed.