Baren (born Oct. 19, 1901, Fenghua, Chekiang province, China—died July 25, 1972, Fenghua) was a Chinese prose writer and critic who was the first Chinese literary theorist to promote the Marxist point of view.
After graduating from primary school, Wang entered the Fourth Normal School in Ningpo. In 1920 Wang completed his studies and began his career as a teacher. His interest in the New Literature Movement led him to read such progressive magazines as Hsin Ch’ing-nien (“New Youth”) and Hsüeh-teng (“Beacon of Knowledge”). In 1923 he started publishing novels and poems in Hsiao-shuo yüeh-pao (“Short Story Monthly”) and became a member of the Literary Research Association. A year later he joined the Chinese Communist Party and in 1930 the Tso-i tso-chia lien-meng (League of Leftist Writers). He participated in the labour movement and continued to teach.
At the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Wang remained in Shanghai and took part in anti-Japanese propaganda, edited various journals and the complete works of Lu Hsün, and established the Social Sciences Institute. After the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, he was appointed the Chinese ambassador to Indonesia and later the director of the Publishing House of People’s Literature. In 1960 he was criticized for his article “Lun jen-ch’ing” (“On Human Feelings”), and he died as the result of persecution during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76).
Baren produced several collections of short stories, including P’o-wu (1928; “The Dilapidated House”) and Hsün (1928; “Sacrifice”), but he is better known for such novels as Akuei liu-lang chi (1928; “Akuei Roaming”), Ssu-hsien-shang (1928; “On the Verge of Death”), and Cheng-jang (1936; “The Badge”). His novel Mang-hsiu-ts’ai tsao-fan chi (1984; “The Record of Rebellion of the Boorish Scholar”) was published posthumously.
Baren’s subject matter—chiefly the lives of peasants—gradually broadened, but his writing style did not develop. One exception is his well-crafted novel Cheng-jang, which portrays the corrupt lives of bureaucrats in the Kuomintang government. Ssu-hsien-shang is based on the writer’s own experiences in a changing world during the Northern Expedition from 1925 to 1927 and is set in the eastern part of Chekiang province. This book is written more skillfully than the works that preceded it. Mang-hsiu-ts’ai tsao-fan chi describes the peasants’ struggle against violent repression in east Chekiang at the end of the 19th century when the slogan “Down with Christianity and Foreign Devils” was widespread. It captures the rich local colour of rural life in southern China. Baren also wrote plays and literary criticism, including Lun Lu Hsün-te tsa-wen (1940; “On Lu Hsün’s Essays”) and Ts’ung Sulien tso-p’in-chung k’an Sulienjen (1955; “Seeing Soviet People Through Soviet Literature”).