Lu Xun or Lu Hsün was the pen name of Zhou Shuren, (1881 - 1936) a leading figure of modern Chinese literature. Writing in Vernacular Chinese as well as Classical Chinese, Lu Xun was a short story writer, editor, translator, literary critic, essayist and poet. In the 1930s he became the titular head of the League of Left-Wing Writers in Shanghai. In the course of his studies overseas, Lu-shun attended a motion-picture performance and saw the decapitation of a Chinese spy; the sight left him that he wished to do something at once. He resolved to established a school of modem literature in China. He gave up his studies and ultimately, at the age of twenty-nine, he returned to China. In due course Mr. Ch'ien Hsuan-t'ung, asked Lu-shun to contribute to his magazine, the New Youth. Fifteen of the stories that Lu-shun published in New Youth were later collected and published as the now famous "Ne-han."