A Literary Giant of Republican-Era China

Years later, in a Republic-era literature class at Tsinghua University, Qian Zhongshu still used lamps as metaphors for people.

He lit a colored-glass lamp and said with a smile, “This is Hu Shi, the guide who led the way for the New Literature movement.”

He lit a brass desk lamp, his voice solemn. “This is Lu Xun, the dagger that pierced the darkness.”

He lit a horn-shaped lamp and sighed softly. “This is Shen Congwen, the moonlight of western Hunan.”

He pushed open the wooden window and let the locust-scented breeze of Beiping rush in, then declared, “This is Chen Yinke, a mountain in the academic world.”

A student in the audience pressed him: “Then, sir, who is the bustle of life and the fragrance of books and ink that spills through the lanes?”

Qian Zhongshu tapped the windowsill with his fingertips, his gaze seeming to pierce time and space toward the lights of a newspaper office in Shanghai. He answered in a ringing voice, “That is Lin Yan, who made a boat of his pen and carried the souls of countless books from later generations across a turbulent age.

With transcription as his blade, he shattered the shackles of old conventions and opened new paths: a trailblazer who broke through the literary world’s barriers!

He was a ‘literary lion of the Republic era,’ bridging old and new and bringing together classical and vernacular writing, winning the nod of the Zhang-Huang School and the admiration of the New Thought movement’s supporters. In Shanghai’s newspaper offices, a single piece of writing from his pen stirred the currents of thought across the nation. His name will never fade!”

In brief: On a rainy night in a Shanghai lane in 1925, Lin Yan returned with the souls of books from a later age. He transcribed classical prose, reworked the classics, and wrote in the vernacular. Amid the clash between the Zhang-Huang School and the New Thought movement, he carved out a place for himself. With the audacity to transcribe, revise, and break new ground, he became a “literary lion of the Republic era,” stirring up a storm in Shanghai with his writing and becoming a landmark in the literary world, forever etched into his age.

This book is also known as: The Years I Spent Transcribing Books in Shanghai; If You Don’t Even Dare to Revise the Classics, What Kind of Literary Giant Are You?