Mao Dun - Journalistic Career

Journalistic Career

After graduation, Mao Dun soon got his first job in the English editing and translation sections of the Commercial Press (商務印書館), Shanghai branch. At the age of 21, he was invitied to be the assistant editor of Xuesheng Zazhi (學生雜誌) (Students' Magazine) under the Commercial Press, which had published many articles about the new ideologies that had emerged in China at that time.

Apart from editing, Mao Dun also started to write about his social thoughts and criticisms. To some extent, he was inspired by the famous magazine New Youth. Like in 1917 and 1918, he wrote two editorials for Xuesheng Zazhi: Students and Society (學生與社會) and The Students of 1918, those were significant in stimulating political consciousness among the young educated Chinese.

At 24 years of age, Mao Dun was already renowned as a novelist by the community in general, and in 1920, he and a group of young writers took over the magazine Xiaoshuo Yuebao (小说月报), which translated means "fiction monthly", to publish literature by western authors, such as Tolstoy, Chekhov, Balzac, Flaubert, Zola, Byron, Keats, Shaw, etc., and make new theories of literature better known. Despite the fact that he was a naturalistic novelist, he admired writers like Leo Tolstoy, for their great artistic style.

In 1920, he was invited to edit a new column: Xiaoshuo Xinchao (小說新潮) (The Fiction-New-Waves) in Xiaoshuo Yuebao. He even took up the post of Chief Editor of the Monthly in the same year and was obliged to reform it thoroughly, in response to the New Cultural Movement (五四運動/新文化運動). His young writer friends in Beijing supported him by submitting their creative writings, translating Western literature and their views on new literature theories and techniques to the magazines. Wenxue Yanjiuhui (文學研究會) (Literature Study Group) was formed partly because of this. The reformed Monthly was proved to be a success. It had facilitated the continuation of the New Cultural Movement by selling ten thousand copies a month and more importantly by introducing Literature for life, a brand new realistic approach to Chinese literature. In this period, Mao Dun had become a leading figure of the movement in the southern part of China.

On the notion of content reformation, both the innovative and conservative parties in the Commercial Press could not make a compromise. Mao Dun resigned from the Chief Editor of Fiction Monthly in 1923, but in 1927 he became the chief columnist of the Minguo yuebao. He wrote more than 30 editorials for this newspaper to criticize Chiang Kai-shek, and to support revolutions.