Revered Chinese translator of Russian literary works Sheng Junfeng has died. He was 93.
Junfeng, known by his pen name Cao Ying, passed away at a Shanghai hospital yesterday.
Born in 1923 in east China's Zhejiang Province, Ying translated many Russian literary works into Chinese, especially that of Leo Tolstoy.
He spent 20 years from 1978 to 1998 to translate 'The Complete Works of Leo Tolstoy' into Chinese.
In addition to Tolstoy whose works he began to translate in 1960, Ying also translated other Russian authors including Mikhail Sholokhov.
He was honoured with the Maxim Gorky Literature Prize, a top honour in the Russian literary world in 1987, the only Chinese translator to have won that award.
Recalling the excitement when when as a senior high school student he bought Cao's 'Anna Karenina', Zhou Limin, deputy curator of Bajin Memorial Hall said, "Holding the book, I felt I was the luckiest person in the world."
"Cao Ying and his translations have led countless readers to the hall of Russian literature. May he rest in peace," state-run Xinhua news agency today quoted a web-user as saying.
He will be mourned by a generation who grew up reading his translations, Limin said.
When Mao Zedong launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966, Ying suffered political persecution and was sent to the May Seventh Cadre Schools to work.
After the Chinese economic reform, he was rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping and served as vice president of Chinese Translation Association, president of Shanghai Translation Association, besides vice president of Shanghai Writers Association.
Ying also became a professor at East China Normal University and Xiamen University.
