Fou Lei

In Fou Lei: An Insistence on Truth, Mingyuan Hu thinks through the life and work of one of modern China's most significant public intellectuals, investigating his Shanghai-Paris trajectory and his resistance against cultural barbarism. Using hitherto undiscovered archival documents, Hu presents the first study of Fou Lei's youth, particularly his formative years in Europe (1928-1931), and analyses the critic-translator's identity vis-a-vis intercultural friendships and political predicaments. Bringing together previously untranslated material in French and Chinese, Fou Lei paints a man in dark times searching for illumination through words, and invites the reader to reconsider questions, unresolved and unspoken, about his tragic end.