Liang Qichao

Scholar, journalist and politician

At 25, advocating constitutional monarchy, Liang Qichao petitioned to reform the Qing court. The Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898 failed, and he took refuge in Japan, from where he travelled to the United States. Always for reform and against revolution, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, he served in the Republican government while keeping a critical distance. He was the first in China to take on the role of public intellectual through modern journalism, founding and editing several influential newspapers. He was a translator, and headed the Translation Bureau in order to introduce Western ideas. He was an educator, teaching at universities and facilitating international research, fostering young talents. He was a Confucian and Buddhist scholar, a comparative historian, a cosmopolitan cultural commentator, a political thinker promoting individualism, nationalism and democracy, and a thoroughly modern man of letters, leaving behind 148 volumes of Collected Works from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio.

Guillaume Apollinaire poet and critic

Peter Behrman de Sinéty translator

Thomas Carlyle essayist and historian

Eileen Chang novelist

Chi Li novelist

Chiang Ching dancer and essayist

Tan-Ying Chou sinologist and translator

Fan Zhongyan poet and politician of the Song Dynasty

Annelise Finegan translator

Romain Graziani sinologist and translator

Han Fei thinker of the Legalist School during the Warring States

Han Yu poet, essayist and politician of the Tang Dynasty

Mingyuan Hu historian, writer and translator

Hu Shih philosopher, writer and politician

David Hume historian and philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment

Jean Izoulet philosopher

Jiang Yun novelist

Jean Levi sinologist and translator of Chinese classics

Liyine Levi-Wong translator

Liu Yiqing writer, statesman and patron during the Six Dynasties

Mencius philosopher during the Warring States, ‘Second Sage’ after Confucius

Gabriel Monod historian

Mu Xin painter and poet

Ouyang Xiu poet, calligrapher and politician of the Song Dynasty

Qu Yuan poet and statesman during the Warring States

Isabelle Rabut sinologist and translator

Maël Renouard novelist, essayist and translator

Sophie Sa translator

George Sand novelist and critic

Shao Baoqing sinologist and translator

Shi Zhecun novelist, essayist and translator

Song Gang translator

Cory Stockwell literary scholar, writer and translator

Su Shi poet, calligrapher and politician of the Song Dynasty

Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard journalist and translator

Hippolyte Taine philosopher, historian and critic

Wei Zheng historian and politician of the Tang Dynasty

Xunzi philosopher and teacher during the Warring States

Zhang Yanyuan painter, art historian and politician of the Tang Dynasty

Stefan Zweig novelist, biographer and translator