Professor Wu Fuhui 吳福輝, a leading scholar of modern Chinese literature, passed away on January 15, 2021. He was 82. Wu was born in Shanghai in 1939 and grew up in Liaoning Province. He graduated from Peking University with a degree in Modern Chinese Literature in 1981. Wu’s research redefined the concept of “haipai wenxue” 海派文學 with a focus on the modernist writings by authors active in the 1920s-40s, such as Ye Lingfeng, Liu Na’ou, Mu Shiying, Shi Zhecun, Xu Xu, Wumingshi, and Eileen Chang. In the 1980s, Wu joined Qian Liqun, Wen Rumin, and Wang Chaobing to write and publish the landmark monograph, Three Decades of Modern Chinese Literature 中國現代文學三十年. He was the founding deputy director of the National Museum of Modern Chinese Literature. His latest publications includes A Cultural History of Modern Chinese Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2020). David Der-wei Wang wrote an introduction to this book, in which he presents the following overview of Wu’s life and work:
Wu Fuhui belongs to the generation of scholars who went through almost all the ups and downs of New China. He started out being a high school teacher in 1959, and did not enroll in the graduate program of Chinese literature at Peking University until 1978, two years after the end of the Great Cultural Revolution. Despite the lag of educational time, he received the best possible training from scholars such as Wang Yao and Yan Jiayan. Whereas Wang Yao published the first modern Chinese literary history after the founding of the PRC, Yan Jiayan was among the forerunners of “rewriting literary history” in the New Era of the 1980s. In other words, Wu took up where his mentors left off in the enterprise of literary history. In 1987, together with Qian Liqun and Wen Rumin, who later became leading scholars in their own right, Wu Fuhui edited Three Decades of Modern Chinese Literature, a landmark of the revisionist engagement of modern literary history. All along Wu had planned to write a literary history illustrating his own critical viewpoint, and his wish was realized when the Chinese edition of A Cultural History of Modern Chinese Literature came out in 2010. The way in which Wu entered the academic sphere amid political turmoil, working with the key figures of contemporary Chinese literary studies, and becoming an outstanding figure, points to the volatile progress and surprising consequences of literary history in contemporary China. Now with the English translation of his history to be published by Cambridge University Press, Professor Wu Fuhui is finally able to share his insights of and reflections on the twists and turns of modern Chinese history with readers worldwide.
A Cultural History of Modern Chinese Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2020)
The obituary released by the National Museum of Modern Chinese Literature:
原中国现代文学馆副馆长、著名学者吴福辉同志，于北京时间2021年1月15日在加拿大因病去世，享年82岁。
吴福辉同志1939年12月9日生于上海，祖籍浙江镇海。1961年开始发表作品。1978年考入北京大学中文系现代文学专业，师从王瑶先生。1983年起参与中国现代文学馆筹备工作。
吴福辉同志是中国作家协会会员，曾担任《中国现代文学研究丛刊》主编、中国现代文学研究会常务副会长、茅盾研究会副会长、河南大学博士生导师等，在中国现代文学研究领域成就卓著，代表作有《中国现代文学三十年》（合著）《沙汀传》《带着枷锁的笑》《中国现代讽刺小说的初步成熟》《乡村中国的文学形态》《现代病态知识社会的机智讽刺》《大陆文学的京海冲突构造》《都市漩流中的海派小说》《中国现代文学发展史》（插图本）等。
吴福辉同志是中国现代文学馆最早的筹建者之一，对中国现代文学馆的创办、发展贡献卓著，他的离去是中国现代文学馆的重大损失，是中国学术界的重大损失，我们深感悲痛。
吴福辉同志千古！
中国现代文学馆吴福辉同志治丧委员会
2021年1月15日
Mingwei Song <msong2@wellesley.edu>