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Chinese editor and author, communist ideologue, one of the greatest modern novelists in China. Mao Dun is best known for the novel Tzu-Yeh (1933, Midnight), a  massive tale about life in the metropolitan Shanghai, and the trilogy Shi (1933). Mao Dun also published over one hundred translations of fiction, drama, and poetry. In the People's Republic of China, he eventually became Minister of Culture, but was dismissed from his post during the Great Cultural Revolution.

"None of these women or children looked really healthy. Since the coming of spring, they had been eating only half of their fill; their clothes were old and torn. As a matter of fact, they weren't much better off than beggars. Yel all were in quite good spirits, sustained by enormous patience and grand illusions. Burdened though they were by daily mounting debts, they had only one thought in their heads—If we get a good crop of silkworms, everything will be all right! . . . They could already visualize how, in a month, the shiny green leaves would be converted into snow-white cocoons, the cocoons exchanged for clinking silver dollar. Although their stomachs were growling with hunger, they couldn't refrain from smiling at this happy prospect." (in Spring Silkworms and Other Stories by Mao Tun, translated by Sidney Shapiro, Peking: Foreign Language Press, 1956, p. 17)

Mao Dun was born Shen Yen-ping in Chekiang province into a middle-class family. After studies at the University of Beijing (Peking) he was employed by editorial office of the Commercial Press in Shanghai. Mao Dun's early writings appeared in the student magazine Xuesheng Zazhi. By the age of twenty-four he was already a well-known author. At his mother's request, he married Kong Denzi (1897-1969) in 1918. She came from a small merchant's family. Before marrying Mao Dun, she was illiterate. One of Mao Dun's short stories, 'Chuangzao' (1930, Creation), tells of an intellectual who educates his wife.

In 1920 Mao Dun and several other young writers took over the 11-years-old magazine Xiaoshuo Yuebao (Fiction Monthly), published by the Commercial Press. They started to introduce Western literature (Tolstoy, Chekhov, Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Byron, Keats, Shaw, etc.) to Chinese readers and make new theories of literature more well known.

Although Mao Dun was a naturalistic novelist, he admired others Leo Tolstoy, who combined in his stories the fate of an individual chatacter or families with historical upheavals. His first essays on the emancipation of women Mao Dun published in 1919. Mao Dun's wife Dezhi (of whom little is known) was involved in the women's movement and he was introduced to the circle that gathered in their house.

Many of Mao Dun's early stories and novellas featured the "new woman" as a revolutionary symbol. The physical portrayal of his female chararters is often sensual. In Shi (Eclipse) he describes the sensuality of Zhang Qiuliu's body, her pert nipples, voluptuous bottom and the slender waist, fair skin of her thights, not to mention her warm fleshy aroma. "The frequency and richness of descriptions of breasts in Mao Dun’s Eclipse trilogy had virtually no precedent in Chinese modern literature." (Revolution and Form: Mao Dun's Early Novels and Chinese Literary Modernity by Jianhua Chen; edited and translated by Carlos Rojas, Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2018, p. 280) Qiuliu fully enjoys her freedom and independence.

Taking Nietzsche's teachings as his standpoint in articles published in Xuesheng zazhi (1920), Mao Dun saw the ideas of great authors as "weapons against traditional morality". In 1922, using his pen-name Xi Zhen, he translated an article about Nietzsche and the socialist dramatist Gerhard Hauptman. Mao Dun had translated Tagore, but on the eve of his visit to China, he wrote (as Shen Yen-ping): "We are determined not to welcome the Tagore who loudly sings the praises of eastern civilization, nor do we welcome the Tagore who creates a paradise of poetry and love, and leads our youth into it so that they may find comfort and intoxication in meditating. . . . Oppressed as we are by militarists from within country and by the imperialists from without, this is not time for dreaming." (quoted in Asian Ideas of East and West: Tagore and His Critics in Japan, China, and India by Stephen N. Hay, Cambridge, MA: Harvad University Press, 1970, pp. 200-201) He was not the only young writer who felt this way.

Shi, Mao Dun's first major work, consists of three slim volumes, Huanmie (1927), Tung-yao (1928), and Chui-ch'iu (1928). It portrays a generation of young intellectuals, who are caught up in the tidal wave of revolutionary fervor without a true understanding of the nature of social change. Mao Dun himself had participated Chiang Kai-shek's Northern Expedition (1926-28) to unite the country, but he fled to Kuling when the Kuomingtang broke with the Chinese Communist Party.

After finishing Eclipse, he took a boat trip to Japan, where he spent two years, living there together with Qing Dejun (1905-1993). She was a member of the Communist Party, a rebellious and independent woman, who had had love affairs with many men before they met. During their relationship, she had two abortions. When Mao Dun left her and returned to Kong Dezhi, she tried to commit  suicide by taking sleeping pills.

In 1930s Mao Dun helped to found the League of Left-Wing Writers, which was dissolved after a quarrel in 1936. Among his masterpieces dealing with Kuomingtang period is the novella 'The Shop of the Lin Family.' In the story a  grocery story in a small town is forced to shut down under semi-feudal backward economic pressures. Mr. Lin runs his business and his small credit union in an old fashioned way, he is a trustworthy man, but eventually he becomes a victim of the changing times and credit contracts. With his bankruptcy a widow loses all her life savings and goes insane. 

Mao Dun's next major work, Hung (1929, Rainbow), was a story about a young woman who escapes from her bourgeois family to join the revolutionary May Thirtieth Movement in Shanghai. The heroine, Mei, was  partly modelled on Qin Dejun. Midnight was Mao Dun's magnum opus, which contained some 70 characters and numerous plot twists and turns. To help the reader, Mao Dun provides a character list. The main theme is the struggle between national capitalist Wu Sun-fu and his rival Zhao Bo-tao, who is supported by American capital. At the end, the defeated Wu Sun-fu leaves for Lushan with his wife.

The saga enjoyed immense popularity and played a vital pioneering part in the development of revolutionary realism. Originally Mao Dun intended to treat many topics to create a social commentary on the whole China, but due to poor health, he had to publish the novel in its present form. Lamenting his indirectness, he called it one of the book's "shortcomings."

'Spring Silkworms,' written in 1932 and published in Chuncan (1933), constituted together with 'Ch'iu shou' (Autumn Harvest) and 'Ts'an tung (Winter Ruins) Mao Dun's rural trilogy. 'Spring Silkworms,' the first part in the series, presented poor farmers, who raise a crop of spring silkworms but their high hopes are crushed and they only get deeper into debt. The author's sympathies are on the side of the simple village people toiling for their living, though their values are out of date – they are doomed like the silkworms themselves. The story was made into a documetary style film in 1933 by Chen Bugao. ". . . the film affirms the story's wormification of humans." ('Mao Dun's "Spring Silkworms": Living Like Worms' by Todd Foley, in Literature, Volume 2, Issue 4, Department of East Asian Studies, New York University, October 2022, p. 233)

Many of Mao Dun's works recorded the tumultuous history of China and the movement of history toward Revolution. Fushi (1941, Putrefaction)  told the story of a young woman, Xhao Huiming, who is a secret agent for the Nationalist Party, the Kuomingtang, during the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-45). His other war novels include Diyi Jieduande Gushi (1937), about the siege of Shanghai in 1937, and Jie hou shi yi (1942), which depicted the Fall of Hong Kong. The trilogy Shuang ye hong si er yue hua (1942) was left unfinished.

After the Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, Mao Dun traveled to many places, and started a literary magazine in Wuhan. He edited the periodical The Literary Front and besides various short stories, he wrote essays. While in Hong Kong he edited the literary page of the newspaper Libao and worked as a teacher. In 1946 traveled in the Soviet Union with his wife. He defended Xiao Hong's Tales of Hulan River (1942) which was rejected by Communist critics on political grounds: "You may complain that the work contains not a single positive character. Nothing but poor creatures, full of self-pity, yet choosing to be slaves to tradition. . . . She shows us the stupidity, obstinacy and sometimes the cruelty of these slaves to tradition yet presents them as by nature good, not given to cheating, hypocrisy, or living in idle comfort, but very easily satisfied."  (quoted in Hsiao Hung by Howard Goldblatt, Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976, p. 105)

The year of 1943 marked a turning point in Mao Dun's life. He did not produce major works of fiction, but continued write articles and essays. It has been argued, that his silence as a novelist and short story writer was caused by his experiences during his visit to the Soviet Union, by the depressive cultural atmosphere, and constant changes in the Party line.

When the communist government took over in 1949, he was active on several commitees. The monthly Chinese Literature, which he edited, became the most popular literary journal for Western readers. Between 1949 and 1965 Mao Dun worked as Minister of Culture and Mao Zedong's secretary. 

A supporter of the Latinized New Writing since the 1930s, he suggested for a policy of "walking on two legs," the use of two writing systems, but his pleas fell on deaf ears. Eventually he lost his post in connection with the ideological upheavals of the 1960s – his downfall was triggered by a film, The Lin Family Shop (1959), based on his story. The film was attacked for showing too much sympathy for capitalists. Nevertheless, Mao Dun survived the Cultural Revolution – he was in house arrest – and was later rehabilitated. His last significant novel depicted wartime terror in Chungking.

In the 1970s Mao Dun edited a magazine of children's literature and started to write his memoirs, which were serialized in the Party publication, the quaterly Xinwenxue Shiliao (Historical Materials on New Literature). The memoirs were not finished before his death on March 27, 1981. A screen version of the novel Ziye (Midnight), directed by Sang Hu, was released in the same year. Throughout his career, Sang Hu directed over 30 films, among them the 1956 adaptation of Lu Xun's short story 'The New Year's Sacrifice'.

For further reading: Mao Dun de wenxue daolu, ed. by Shao Bozhou et al. (1959); A History of Modern Chinese Fiction by C.T. Hsia (1961); Mao Tun and Modern Chinese Literary Criticism by Marian Galik (1969); The Genesis of Modern Chinese Literature Criticism by Marian Galik (1980); Realism and Allegory in the Early Fiction of Mao Dun by Yu-shih Chen (1986); The Portrayal of Women in Mao Dun's Early Fiction 1927-1932 by Hilary Chung (1991); Fictional Realism in the Twentieth-Century China by David Der-wei Wang (1992); The Monster That Is History: History, Violence, and Fictional Writing in Twentieth-Century China by David Der-wei Wang (2004); Revolution and Form: Mao Dun's Early Novels and Chinese Literary Modernity by Jianhua Chen; edited and translated by Carlos Rojas (2018) - Suom.: Kertomuksia  (teoksesta Rasskazy, suom. Vuokko Ahveninen, 1957); 'Syyssato' (suom. Elvi Sinervo, teoksessa Kiinalaisia kertojia, 1958)  

Selected works:

• 'Xianzai wenxuejia de zeren shi shenme?', Jan 10, 1920 (in Dongfang zazhi)
  - 'What Are the Duties of Contemporary Men of Letters' (translated by  Barbara Buri)
• Huan-mieh, Tung-yao, Chui-ch'iu, 1927-1930 (novellas; serialized in Xiaoshuo Yuebao, published in 1930 as a trilogy under the title Shi)
• Yeh ch'iang-wei, 1929
• Shi, 1930 (Eclipse trilogy: Disillusionment, Wavering and Pursuit)
  
• Hung, 1930
  - Rainbow (translated by Madeleine Zelin, 1992)
• San-jen-hsing, 1931
• Lu, 1932
• 'Lin jia pu zi', 1932
  - 'The Shop of the Lin Family' (translated by Sidney Shapiro, in Spring Silkworms and Other Stories, 1956)
  - Film: Lin jia pu zi, 1959, dir. Choui Khoua, screenplay by Yan Xia, starring Shu Chen, Tao Han, Bin Lin, Wei Ma, Tian Xie, Lan Yu, Liang Zhang, Ziyue Zhao
• Chunchan, 1932-33
  - translations: in Contemporary Chinese Stories (translated by  Chi-chen Wang, 1944); in Three Seasons, and Other Stories (translated by Chun-chan Yeh, 1946); in Spring Silkworms and The Shop of the Lin Family (translated by Sidney Shapiro, 1956); in A Treasury of Chinese Litterature: A New Prose Anthology Including Fiction and Drama (translated by  Ch'u Chai and Winberg Chai, 1965); in Straw Sandals: Chinese Stories, 1918-1933 (translated by George A. Kennedy, ed. Harold R. Isaacs, 1974)
  - 'Syyssato' (suom. Elvi Sinervo, teoksessa Kiinalaisia kertojia: valikoima Kiinan kirjallisuutta, toim. Pertti Nieminen, 1958)
  -  Film: Chun can, 1933, dir. Cheng Bugao, adapted by Yan Xia, starring Ying Xiao, Yuexian Yan, Jianong Gong
• 'Ch'iu shou', 1933 (in Shenbao yuekan 2:4 and 2:5)
• ''Ts'an tung', July 1933 (in Venxue)
•  Tzu-Yeh, 1933
  - Midnight (translated by Hsu Meng-hsiung, 1957)
  -  Film:  Ziye, 1981, dir.  Hu Sang, starring Xiaoying Cheng,Yelu Gu, Fei Han, Rentang Li
• Mao Dun zi xuan ji, 1933
• Mao Tun tuan p'ien hsiao shuo chi, 1934
• Yin hsiang, kan hsiang, hui i, 1936
• Zhongguo de yi ri, 1936 (ed.)
  - One Day in China, May 21, 1936 (translated and edited by Sherman Cochran and Andrew C.K. Hsieh with Janis Cochran, 1983)
• Diyi Jieduande Gushi, 1937
• Wen yi zhen di, 1938
• Su xie yu sui bi, 1940
• Fushi, 1941
• Shuang ye hong si er yue hua, 1942
• Jie hou shi yi, 1942
• Shuang ye hong si er yue hua, 1947
• Yin hsiang, kan hsiang, hui i, 1949
• 'T'an tsui-chin ti tuan-p'ien hsiao-shuo', 1958 (in Jen-min wen-hsueh)
• Mao Tun san wen-chi, 1958-61 (8 vols.)
• 'Fan-ying she-hui chu-i yueh-chin ti shih-tai, t'ui-tung she-hui chu-i yueh-chin', 1960 (in Jen-min wen-shueh)
• Mao Tun tuan pien hsiao shuo chi, 1980
• Duanlian, 1980
• Mao Dun san wen su xie ji, 1980 (2 vols.)
• Mao Dun wen yi za lun ji, 1981 (2 vols.)
• Wo tsao kuo ti tao lu, 1981
• Shen hua yan jiu, 1981
• T'o hsien tsa chi, 1982
• Mao Dun quan ji, 1986-<2001> (v. <1-9, 13-27, 29-32, 34-40>) 
• Mao Dun san wen ji, 1994
• Mao Tun tzu chuan, 1996
• Mao Dun zuo pin jing xuan / Ding Ergang xuan bian, 2003
• Zhongguo shen hua yan jiu chu tan, 2005
• Mao Dun quan ji: bu yi, 2006
  
• Za tan Sulian, 2012
• Zou Taofen: yong bi jian zuo zhan, 2020