Lao She

Lao She was born in 1899 to a poor Manchu family in Beijing. He left China in his mid-twenties to teach Chinese at the University of London, where he stayed for the next five years. Mr Ma and Son was his third and final novel written duringhis London years, and was serialized in 1929.

Lao She continued to teach and write upon his return to China, and became an established and respected author renowned for his humorist style. He ventured into the realm of satire and science fiction with Cat Country in 1932, also published by Penguin. He committed suicide in Beijing in 1966, a few years after being labelled an anti-Maoist and counter-revolutionary by the Red Guards.