Lu Xun in the Post‑Mao Era: Refashioning His Image through Wang Xiaoming’s The Cold Face of Reality

Abstract

Wang Xiaoming’s The Cold Face of Reality: A Biography of Lu Xun stands as a pivotal work in the reshaping of Lu Xun’s image in the post‑Mao era, also called the New Era. Breaking away from earlier biographical paradigms centered on a “revolutionary” Lu Xun, the work portrays him as a writer and thinker caught in profound spiritual agony. The Lu Xun who emerges from this biography resonates with many intellectual and cultural currents of the 1980s and 1990s, entering into a deep dialogue with the concerns surrounding movements such as the “Rewriting Literary History” movement and the “Debate on Humanistic Spirit.” The Cold Face of Reality is thus both a classic New Era biography of Lu Xun and a vivid window onto the intellectual and cultural landscape of China during those decades.