Liu Zhenying

Liu Zhenying (1915–1990), who also wrote under the pen names Liu Nian and Chen Mei, was a Chinese translator and scholar of Japanese literature from Shenyang, Liaoning. After graduating in 1941 from the Department of Japanese Literature at Tokyo Higher Normal School, he devoted himself to teaching Japanese and studying Japanese literature. He served as a professor at Beijing Normal University and Peking University, became China's first doctoral supervisor in Japanese language and literature, and was the founding president of the Chinese Association for Japanese Language Teaching. His work combined translation and research: he translated Natsume Soseki's I Am a Cat and Botchan as well as Tsubouchi Shoyo's The Essence of the Novel, producing faithful and readable versions, while his research addressed foreign literature and literary appreciation and introduced modern Japanese novel theory. Four of his works are held in this collection, mostly different editions of these translations.