Writers › Writer / Poet
Lao She
Manchu novelist and playwright of Beijing, author of Rickshaw Boy, Four Generations Under One Roof and Teahouse, who also wrote drum ballads and crosstalk and named Beijing quju.
Mural of the cultural record “Xiangsheng (Crosstalk)”, which this person is tied to.
Also known as Born Shu Qingchun · Zi Sheyu
- Roles
- Writer / Poet
Lao She, born Shu Qingchun and styled Sheyu, was a Manchu born in Beijing on 3 February 1899. Writing in the vernacular of his native city, he produced the novels Rickshaw Boy and Four Generations Under One Roof and the play Teahouse. He knew Beijing's storytelling arts well: in 1938 he published Sansiyi, a collection of popular pieces including drum ballads, zhuizi and crosstalk, kept company with drum-song performers, and drew on that world for his novel The Drum Singers. In 1950 he helped Beijing's crosstalk reform group revise the traditional repertoire, and in 1952 he gave the name Beijing quju to the new opera grown out of danxian suites, writing its first piece, Liushu Jing. He died in Beijing on 24 August 1966.
Life and times
Dates 1899 CE–1966 CE