CHOU TSO-JEN

born Jan. 16, 1885, Shao-hsing, Chekiang Province, China died November 1966, Peking? Pinyin Zhou Zuo-ren essayist and literary scholar who translated fiction from many languages into vernacular Chinese. Chou Tso-jen and his elder brother Chou Shu-jen (literary name Lu Hsn), a writer and literary critic, received a classical education, which was temporarily interrupted by financial difficulties in the family. Although Chou Tso-jen passed the examinations to qualify for an official career, he chose to devote himself to scholarship, learning English and studying Western intellectual history. In 1905 his first translation, of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold Bug," was published. The following year he and his brother went to Japan, where Chou Tso-jen studied Japanese language and literature, classical Greek literature, and English literature. He continued his translating and published a collection of European fiction, selecting works to stimulate the people of China with the examples of others who had rebelled under oppressive rule. In 1912 Chou Tso-jen and his Japanese wife returned to China, where he taught at Peking University and began writing the essays that won him renown. One of his favourite topics was the need for language reform and the use of the vernacular; he also pleaded for what he termed a "humane" literature and praised the social realism of Western writers. His collections of translations-from Greek, Roman, Russian, and Japanese literature-continued to be published as his popularity as an authority on foreign literature increased. During the 1920s Chou Tso-jen was active in several socially and politically oriented literary societies, which led to his being blacklisted, in 1926, for radical activities. This, combined with increasingly frequent attacks from leftists on his stand against propagandist literary doctrines, forced Chou Tso-jen out of public literary life in China, but he resumed his studies privately in Peking. Because he remained in his home in northern China during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-45) and worked for a Japanese-sponsored bureau of education, he was tried as a collaborator by the National Government after the war ended and was condemned to death. His sentence was commuted to imprisonment, and he received a full pardon in 1949, permitting him to continue his research. After the Communist takeover in that same year, Chou returned to Peking, where he continued to write and translate.