Fu Lei


Fu Lei was a Chinese translator and critic. His translation theory was dubbed the most influential in French-Chinese translation. He was known for his renowned renditions of Balzac and Romain Rolland.

Life and career

Born in Nanhui, today a district of Shanghai, Fu was raised by his mother. Between 1928 and 1931 he read literature and art history in Paris, befriending, amongst others, Jacques Maritain and Jean Daniélou. Between 1932 and 1934 he taught art history at Shanghai Art Academy. An occasional critic and curator, for the most part of his working life, Fu Lei translated full-time.
In 1958, Fu was labelled a rightist in the Anti-Rightist Movement, and was politically persecuted. In 1966, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, he and his wife Zhu Meifu committed suicide. His letters to his son, the pianist Fou Ts'ong, were published in 1981. Fu Lei's Family Letters is a long-standing best-seller in China.

Scholarship

Fu's close relationship with the artist Huang Binhong is the subject of the 2009 monograph, Friendship in Art: Fou Lei and Huang Binhong, by the Australian scholar Claire Roberts.
Fu's life and work is the subject of the 2017 monograph, Fou Lei: An Insistence on Truth, by the Chinese-British scholar Mingyuan Hu. It chronicles the hitherto unknown Parisian milieu and intellectual formation of Fu Lei through archival documents unearthed in France. Reviewing Fou Lei: An Insistence on Truth, the sinologist and literary scholar John Minford wrote: “Here this absorbing book breaks new and fascinating ground, offering crucial evidence of the growth of a great translator’s mind.”

Legacy

The Fu Lei Translation and Publishing Award was created in 2009 by the French Embassy in China to recognize the works of Chinese translators and publishers translated from French publications.

Works

Translations
Letters
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