Zhou Lingfei, grandson of Lu Xun, says that before his father Zhou Hai-ying passed away in April, he expressed three wishes.

"The first was to publish an all-embracing collection of my grandfather's works; the second was to hold a commemorative event on the occasion of his 130th birth anniversary; the third was to establish a national Lu Xun fund," says the 58-year-old director of Shanghai Lu Xun Cultural Center.

The first wish has been realized, with the launch of The Great Complete Works of Lu Xun early in September.

Published by Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House, the 33-volume collected works with 15 million words is by far the most complete set of Lu Xun's works, including his literary works, letters, diaries, translations, collation of ancient books, calligraphy and paintings.

In addition, it also incorporates Lu Xun quotations collected from the memoirs of his contemporaries and over 20 of his speeches, none of which has been included in previous editions.

Proposed by Zhou Haiying five years ago, it took more than 40 researchers and scholars to finish the compilation and annotations for the whole body of Lu Xun's works.

Li Xinyu, chief editor and professor of modern Chinese literature with Tianjin-based Nankai University, says a feature of the latest collection is that all the works are arranged chronologically, so that readers can trace the trajectory of the writer's thinking.

The first collection of Lu Xun's complete works was published two years after his death in 1938, with the efforts of his second wife Xu Guangping.

Since then, there have been three major editions. But none is "complete" in a real sense. Besides, in all three editions, Lu Xun's translations haven't received due attention, and some of the annotations have been warped due to ideological concerns.

A grand Lu Xun 130th birth anniversary commemorative event was held on Sept 21 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing and procedures for setting up a Lu Xun fund are already underway.

China Daily

(China Daily 09/23/2011 page19)