Wu Ningkun (; September 1920 – August 10, 2019) was Professor Emeritus of English at the University of International Relations in

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

, where he had taught since 1956. During the 1980s, he held Visiting Fellowships at

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

Northwestern University Northwestern University (NU) is a Private university, private research university in Evanston, Illinois, United States. Established in 1851 to serve the historic Northwest Territory, it is the oldest University charter, chartered university in ...

and the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university, research university system in the U.S. state of California. Headquartered in Oakland, California, Oakland, the system is co ...

. In 1990, he was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters from

Manchester University The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

, Indiana. In 1992, he was Mansfield Visiting professor of Chinese Studies at the

University of Montana The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana, United States. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. Fall 2024 saw total enrollment hit 10,811, marki ...

. He has frequently lectured at Cambridge, Columbia,

Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

and other universities. His publications include the memoir
''A Single Tear - A Family's Persecution, Love, and Endurance in Communist China''
written in collaboration with his wife, Li Yikai (); scholarly essays in English and Chinese; and translations from English into Chinese and vice versa, among them a translation of ''

The Great Gatsby ''The Great Gatsby'' () is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with Jay Gatsby, a mysterious mi ...

'' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was a member of th
Independent Chinese PEN Center
but resigned in 2006.

Biography

Wu Ningkun was born on August 14, 1920 (lunar calendar),

Yangzhou Yangzhou is a prefecture-level city in central Jiangsu Province, East China. Sitting on the north bank of the Yangtze, it borders the provincial capital Nanjing to the southwest, Huai'an to the north, Yancheng to the northeast, Taizhou, Jiangsu, ...

Jiangsu Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...

, China. In 1939, at the end of his sophomore year at the National Southwestern Associated University in

Kunming Kunming is the capital and largest city of the province of Yunnan in China. The political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province, Kunming is also the seat of the provincial government. During World War II, Kunming was a Ch ...

, he volunteered for the Chinese

National Revolutionary Army The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; zh, labels=no, t=國民革命軍) served as the military arm of the Kuomintang, Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang, or KMT) from 1924 until 1947. From 1928, it functioned as the regular army, de facto ...

as interpreter for the American Flying Tigers. After the Second World War, in 1946, he took up his study of English literature again at

Manchester University (Indiana) Manchester University (formerly Manchester College) is a private liberal arts university associated with the Church of the Brethren and two locations, a residential campus in North Manchester, Indiana, and a second location in Fort Wayne, Indiana ...

and the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...

. In 1951, while working on a dissertation about T. S. Eliot, he was invited to return to China and accept an academic position at

Yenching University Yenching University () was a Private university, private research university in Beijing, China, from 1919 to 1952. The university was formed out of the merger of four Christian colleges between the years 1915 and 1920. The term "Yenching" come ...

, Beijing, replacing an American professor who was forced to depart due to the

Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...

. He decided to interrupt his doctoral studies and accept the invitation: "The lure of a meaningful life in a brave new world outweighed the attraction of a doctorate and an academic future in an alien land."A Single Tear, New York 1993, p.5 In his memoir he recounts an anecdote about T. D. Lee, one of the fellow graduate students who had come to see him off for his journey:

"Why aren't you coming home to serve the new China, T. D.?" He answered with a knowing smile, "I don't want to have my brains washed by others." As I didn't know how brains could be washed, I did not at the time find the idea very daunting.

Not long after his return, however, Wu got his first taste of what "brain washing" could mean, in the form of enforced "thought reform" sessions. In 1952, after one year at Yenching University, Wu was transferred to

Nankai University Nankai University is a public university in Tianjin, China. It is affiliated with the Ministry of Education of China. The university is part of Project 211, Project 985, and the Double First-Class Construction. Nankai University was establ ...

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

, where he met his wife, Li Yikai. The couple married in 1954. During the 1955 Campaign to Uproot Hidden Counterrevolutionaries Wu was suspected of having been a Nationalist spy, or of still being an American spy, and he was denounced as the number-one "hidden counterrevolutionary" at Nankai University. In 1957, during the Hundred Flowers Campaign, he was one of the intellectuals who - despite initial misgivings - spoke up for freedom of speech. This led to his formal denouncement as an "ultra-rightist" during the

Anti-Rightist campaign The Anti-Rightist Campaign () in the People's Republic of China, which lasted from 1957 to roughly 1959, was a political campaign to purge alleged " Rightists" within the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the country as a whole. The campaign w ...

of September 1957, and in the spring of 1958 he was sent to a state prison farm in

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...

for "corrective education through hard labor". In 1961, during the famine caused by the

Great Leap Forward The Great Leap Forward was an industrialization campaign within China from 1958 to 1962, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Party Chairman Mao Zedong launched the campaign to transform the country from an agrarian society into an indu ...

, he was released from prison. During the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...

(1966–1976) Wu and his family were again persecuted, as were so many other intellectuals and their families. In 1980 he was rehabilitated, and he resumed his former teaching post at the Institute of International Relations.

Notes

External links

Independent Chinese PEN Center: Wu Ningkun

*"Remembering Wu Ningkun", by Cai Yiwen, ''Sixth Tone'', 17 Aug 2019 {{DEFAULTSORT:Wu, Ningkun 1920 births 2019 deaths American writers of Chinese descent Victims of the Anti-Rightist Campaign Converts to Roman Catholicism University of Chicago alumni National Southwestern Associated University alumni Manchester University (Indiana) alumni Academic staff of Yenching University Academic staff of Nankai University Academic staff of Anhui University Academic staff of Anhui Normal University Victims of the Cultural Revolution Chinese emigrants to the United States 20th-century Chinese translators Chinese–English translators English–Chinese translators