Lu Xun the legacy

Does the man who is considered a giant of 20th century literature continue to influence the current generation of writers and readers? Chitralekha Basu, Yang Guang and Mei Jia mull the issue.

Lu Xun is easily the most recognizable face of 20th century Chinese literature. He would have been 130 on Sunday (Sept 25), but in popular imagination it is the image of a 50-ish Lu Xun - scruffy-haired, mustachioed, square-jawed and imbued with a steely gaze - that has endured. In Lu Xun's case, the image becomes the writer. In fact, the role he played in public life has often taken precedence over his writing, feeding into his iconic aura.

He snipped off his queue (the braid Chinese men wore as a token of deference to Manchu rule from 1644-1911) as a young language student in Tokyo; and openly defied his boss, the minister of education, when several of his students were killed by the warlord government at a peaceful demonstration in Beijing in 1926.