City of writers

As Shanghai flourished as a multinational hub for finance and business in the 1930s, it also became home to many prominent Chinese writers and translators, who lived and worked in Shanghai during that period.

Lu Xun (1881-1936), often called the founder of modern Chinese literature, wrote most of his well-known satirical essays after 1927, when he moved to Shanghai. He lived in a three-story house in the Hongkou area, then the Japanese concession.

In Shanghai Lu Xun co-founded the Chinese League of Left-Wing Writers and called on the public to rebel against the corrupt government. Lu Xun died of tuberculosis in his Shanghai home in 1936. A flag bearing the words "soul of the nation" was laid on top of his coffin before he was buried in the international cemetery in Hongqiao. Two decades later his grave was moved to Hongkou Park.