Lao She's son Shu Yi died, and before his death, he said that he did not mind always being bound to his father and being introduced

Reporter | Zhao Yunxian

Edit | Jiang Yan

At 14:16 on April 21, Shu Yi, the former director of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature and the son of the writer Lao She, died in Beijing at the age of 86 due to ineffective medical treatment.

In an interview with the Beijing Evening News, Ji Lei, deputy director of the Museum of Modern Literature, said that Shu Yi was sent to the hospital for a sudden cerebral hemorrhage six years ago, and the effect after craniotomy was not ideal. After a year of recovery after the operation, his condition deteriorated and he stayed in the ICU after being transferred to Tongren Hospital, and most of the time he was in a comatose state. A week ago, Shu Yi's various indicators were in a bad condition, and expert consultations were also conducted. On April 20, the hospital reported a critical illness and died the next afternoon. This morning, Shu Yi's family will go to Babaoshan to handle the farewell ceremony for him and determine the specific time.

Shu Yi was born in 1935, the eldest son of the writer Lao She, went to the former Soviet Union to study at the age of 19, and was assigned to the Academy of Forestry after graduation and returned to China, where he has been engaged in related research work. Since 1978, Shu Yi began to get involved in the literary world, publishing some articles recalling Lao She, publishing essay collections such as "Lao She Sanji", "The Last Two Days of Lao She", "My Kite", etc. During this period, he also served as the director of the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature and the Ninth National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

Ji Lei particularly emphasized Shu Yi's contribution to the preparation of the Modern Literature Museum, saying that Shu Yi came to work in the Museum before the establishment of the Museum of Literature, in addition to the daily business of the Museum of Literature, he also spent time on other related matters, such as the statue of the writer in the new Museum of Literature, the murals in the hall, the model of Mr. Barkin on the doorknob and other ideas from Shu Yi. The prefaces to some of the exhibitions were also handwritten by Shu Yi himself.

The name "Son of Lao She" Shu Yi spent most of his life, but he was also involved in controversy. The most famous of these is the "shelling" of Shu Yi by the writer Wang Shuo in an interview with the Beijing News in 2007. Wang Shuo called Shu Yi a "typical empty writer" and an "image of a literary bureaucrat", and accused him of not being worthy of mentioning the four words "Mr. Lao She", suspecting that Shu Yi did not call Lao She his father because he was ashamed. At the end of the same year, Shu Yi responded to Wang Shuo's remarks in an interview, saying that not calling Lao She a father was because he, as a "scholar who studies Lao She", wanted to "try to get rid of kinship" and "maintain an objective position". When asked by the media if he minded adding the title of "Son of Lao She" every time he was introduced, he replied, "I don't mind very much." This shows that on the one hand, my achievements are not remarkable, and on the other hand, his achievements are too high. I think only people who do nothing would mind such a title. ”

Another controversy sparked by Shu Yi was related to the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature. At the turn of the century, Shu Yi repeatedly announced that the 1968 Nobel Prize in Literature was originally to be awarded to Lao She, but the Swedish side later learned that Lao She had passed away and then transferred it to Yasunari Kawabata, who was also an East Asian. Despite some skepticism, the rumor that "Lao She lost the Nobel Prize because he committed suicide by throwing himself into the lake" circulated for many years, until 2019, when the final shortlist for the 1968 Nobel Prize was allowed to be made public after 50 years, and the rumors were falsified. In this list, the five writers who entered the shortlist that year were the English poet Auden, the French novelist André Malraux, the French playwright Samuel Beckett, and the Japanese novelist Yasunari Kawabata, whose name laoshe was not among them.