Zeng Pu (Tseng P'u) 1872-1935

Writer and translator of the late Qing dynasty. Born in Jiangsu province, Zeng spent his early life immersed in classical scholarship. In 1895, he produced a work of historical research. In the same year, he enrolled in the College of Foreign Languages in Peking to learn French, and later studied French literature and philosophy with a friend who had once been the military attache in France. In 1904, Zeng took an active part in the literary scene and took over the writing of the novel Niehai hua [A flower in an ocean of sin], a work in twenty chapters depicting the corruption of elite society in the late Qing. Zeng Pu also wrote an autobiographical novel, Lu Nanzi: lian [The real man: love], dealing with his childhood and youth.

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