Kuo Mo-jo

Kuo Mo-jo: see Guo Moruo.

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Guo Moruo

 or Kuo Mo-jo orig. Guo Kaizhen

(born Nov. 1892, Shawan, Luoshan county, Sichuan province, China—died June 12, 1978, Beijing) Chinese scholar and writer. In his youth he abandoned medical studies to devote himself to foreign literature, producing a popular translation of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Sorrows of Young Werther (1922). He wrote prolifically in every genre, including poetry, fiction, plays, nine autobiographical volumes, translations of Western works, and historical and philosophical treatises, including a monumental study of ancient inscriptions. Initially a liberal democrat, he became a Marxist in the 1920s, and his work was banned by the Guomindang. Following the 1949 revolution, he was named to the highest official literary positions and later to the presidency of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.