Shen Ts'ung-wen ( 1 903-) , professor of literature, editor, and writer of fiction celebrating everyday life and the dignity of the common Chinese. Fenghuang, on the western border of Hunan, was the birthplace of Shen Ts'ung-wen. He was born into an old military family which had lost its money during the Boxer Uprising. Shen was an indifferent student, known chiefly for his truancy. After studying at a military school for two years, he was assigned to a regiment at Yuanling when he was 15. He spent most of the next three years in observing army life, bandits, and the local Miao tribesmen and in pursuing a program of self education which included classical and modern literature and politics. After leaving the army, wandering awhile, and holding a variety of jobs, he went to Peking in 1922 for further study. At Peking, Shen Ts'ung-wen registered as a non-matriculating student and found lodgings in a boardinghouse frequented by young writers. Many of his new friends were venturing to publish their own stories and essays, and Shen soon followed suit—the more eagerly because writing constituted his only possible source of income. From 1922 to 1927 he wrote scores of stories, most of them concerning his Hunan adventures. He gradually won a reputation as a sound craftsman and an effective stylist. As almost the only young writer of recognizable talent who was not a radical, he soon became part of the circle of liberal intellectuals that was dominated by Hu Shih (q.v.). Shen also met and became deeply attached to Ting Ling and Hu Yeh-p'in (qq.v.), and the three of them lived together until Hu's death in 1931.

Late in 1927 Shen Ts'ung-wen, Ting Ling, and Hu Yeh-p'in left Peking for Shanghai and various publishing ventures (for details, see Hu Yeh-p'in) . None of the three was possessed of a business head, however, and by September 1929 all of their enterprises had ended in bankruptcy. Faced with large debts, Shen became a professor of Chinese literature, in which capacity he was to serve off-and-on for the next 20 years at Shanghai, Wuhan, Tsingtao, Kunming, and Peiping. He also took up editing and served from 1933 to 1937 as editor of the literary supplement of the Tientsin Ta Kung Pao. At the same time, Shen continued writing so prolifically that by 1935 his collected works totalled some 35 volumes.

With the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, Shen Ts'ung-wen traveled to Yunnan by way of western Hunan and joined the staff of Southwest Associated University at Kunming. He remained there until the war ended, using his leisure time to revise and correct old pieces and to rework some of his early war notes into new form. In 1945 Shen left Kunming for Peiping, where he had been appointed professor of Chinese literature at Peking University. After the Chinese Communists came to power in 1949, his serene life was shattered and he was subjected to severe ideological attacks by groups of leftist students. When forced to undergo "thought reform," he suffered a nervous breakdown and attempted suicide. Subsequently, he was transferred to the institute of folk music and then to the staff of the palace museum. By 1955 he seemed to have recovered his health. In February 1956 he served as a special delegate to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, and he also attended the 1959 and 1964 meetings of this body. Shortly after his recovery, Shen resumed teaching. In 1957 a book summarizing his work in the palace museum and a collection of his stories were published at Peking. Although Shen wrote no original fiction after 1949 and although he was subjected for a time to "reform through labor," his career ended on a positive note, in ironical contrast to that of his old friend Ting Ling. She had denounced Shen as apolitical and pro-bourgeois and had received a Stalin Prize in 1952 only to vanish a few years later after being accused of a variety of ideological crimes.

As a writer, Shen was known above all for his independence and his prodigious output. Although he knew no foreign languages, he developed a remarkably "Europeanized" style which contributed a new flexibility and variety to the emerging pai-hua [vernacular]. Shen's favorite theme was the courage and dignity of the common Chinese, and his techniques were drawn largely from the traditional Chinese novel. However, he also read Western literature in translation and frequently adapted Western conventions to his own purpose.

Shen Ts'ung-wen's earliest writings appeared in the literary supplements (wen-hsueh fu-k'an) of such Peking newspapers as the CKen-pao [morning post]. Before long, his stories began to appear in the Hsien-tai p'ing-lun [modern critic] and the Hsin-yüeh [crescent moon], while a number of his critical essays were published in the Wen-i yüeh-k''an [literature monthly], notably a study of the poetry of Chu Hsiang (q.v.). Shen's earliest successes were exciting stories of border fighting and Miao life which earned him a reputation as "the Dumas of China." In 1926 a volume of his stories, Ya-tzu [ducks] was published, and in 1937 Mi-kan [oranges] appeared. Studies of Chinese soldiers and rural inhabitants followed in 1928, in Ju-wu-hou [in the army] and Lao-shih jen [an honest man]. That year also saw the publication of the satirical Hao-kuan hsien-shih-ti Jen [the man who understood leisure] and of A-li-ssu Chung-kuo yu-chi [Alice's adventures in China], a fanciful continuation of the Lewis Carroll classic. In addition, Shen wrote a Chinese adaptation of the Decameron under the title Yüeh-hsia hsiao-ching [shadows in the lamplight].

In 1929 Shen published Shih-ssu yeh-chien [14 nights] and Shen wu chih ai [love of a witch]. Shen Ts'ung-wen chia-chi [the collected works of Shen Ts'ung-wen, first volume] appeared in 1930, as did Lu-tien yü cKi-Va [the hotel and other matters], a collection of six stories about city life. In 1931 Shen published further installments of his collected works and two volumes of short stories entitled Shih-tzu ch'uan [marble boat] and Chiu-meng [old dreams]. The following year saw the appearance of Hu-ch'u [tiger cubs], Ni-t'u [mud], Tu-shih i fu-jen [a woman of the city], and I-ko nu-chüyuan-ti sheng-huo [life of an actress]. In 1933 Shen published I-ko mu-cKin [one mother] and Chi Hu Yeh-p'in [reminiscences of Hu Yeh-p'in], and in 1934 he published Mo-mo chi [spume], Yu-mu chi [wherever the eye roams], and Ju-jui chi, the last of which contains some of his best descriptions of city life and his most famous Miao piece, "Hsiao-hsiao." Also in 1934 he published Chi Ting Ling [reminiscences of Ting Ling] and his first novel, Pien-ch'eng [border town].

In 1935 Shen began superintending his monster 35-volume edition of his collected works and published Fu-shih chi [this floating world] and Pa-chun-Vu [the eight steeds], the latter containing some frank descriptions of brothel life which aroused considerable comment at the time. Hsinyü chiu [the old and the new] and three volumes of selections from his earlier writings appeared in 1936. The following year, Shen collaborated with Hsiao Ch'ien on a volume of essays entitled Fei-yu ts'un-kao [letters we never sent]. During the war years, Shen's production slackened somewhat. In 1940 he published a second volume of reminiscences concerning Ting Ling, Chi Ting Ling hsü-pien, as well as a collection of five stories entitled Chu-fu chi [housewives]. In 1943 he published the best of his wartime writing in two volumes entitled Hsiang-hsi [western Hunan], a book of fact, and CKang-ho [the long river], a book of fiction. Both of these were based on his 1937 visit to western Hunan. Episodically constructed around the theme of permanence and change, Ctiang-ho is generally considered the best of Shen's longer fiction. To the same period belong Ctiun-teng chi [lamp of spring] and Hei-feng chi [black phoenix], Shen's most important collections of stories. In 1946 Shen completed his autobiography, Ts'ung-wen tzu-chuan, and in 1947 he published four chapters of what appeared to be a long romance about feuding Miao tribesmen. These chapters, which appeared in Chu Kuangch'ien's Wen-hsüeh tsa-chih [literary magazine], were entitled "Ch'ih-mo" [the red incubus], "Hsueh-ch'ing" [snow and sunshine], "Ch'iaohsiu ho Tung-sheng" [Ch'iao-hsiu and Tungsheng], and "Ch'uan-ch'i pu-ch'i" [a romance quite ordinary].

Following the Communist takeover in 1949, Shen Ts'ung-wen stopped writing fiction. An historical study of Chinese textile design entitled Chung-kuo ssu-cKou t'u-an, based on his work in the palace museum, appeared in 1957, as did a selection of his stories, Shen Ts'ung-wen hsiao-shu hsuan-chi. T'ang Sung Vung-ching [bronze mirrors of the T'ang and Sung periods] appeared in 1958. Shen's last published articles, which appeared in the Kuang-ming jih-pao in 1961, stressed the need to check written sources against artifacts when elucidating obscure classical texts.