Su Man-shu

(pen name of Su Hsü-anying). Born 1884; died 1918. Chinese writer and translator.

Although a Buddhist monk, Su Man-shu took part in the revolutionary events of the early 20th century and wrote articles for the opposition newspapers Kuomin jih-pao and Chung-kuo jih-pao. His first published work was the autobiographical novella The Lonely Swan (1912; Russian translation, 1971), which dealt with the tragic love of a young Buddhist monk. The theme of pure tragic emotion was also developed in the short stories “The Cherry-colored Tulle,” “The Saber,” “The Broken Hairpin,” and “It Is Not a Dream.”

The first original Chinese romanticist, Su Man-shu wrote melancholy and lyrical poetry. He translated into Chinese a number of works by European romanticists, as well as Kalidasa’s Abhijnana-shakuntala; he also translated Chinese classical poetry into English.