Fu Lei

Fu Lei (1908–1966), styled Nu'an and known by the sobriquet Nu'an, was a native of Nanhui, Shanghai, and a renowned Chinese translator, writer and literary critic. He studied at the University of Paris in his early years and devoted his life to translating more than thirty works by French masters such as Balzac, Romain Rolland and Voltaire. Adhering to the principle of valuing spiritual resemblance over formal likeness, his translations are celebrated for their vividness and concision and are still widely read today. His renditions of Jean-Christophe, Le Père Goriot and Eugénie Grandet have long served as key pathways for Chinese readers into French literature. Beyond translation, he wrote Letters from Fu Lei and Twenty Lectures on World Masterpieces of Art, works marked by sincerity and learning. The library holds 295 of his works, spanning essays, foreign literature and classic translations, testifying to the enduring influence of his writing and translation in the Chinese-speaking world.