Lao She, pseud. of Shu She-yü or Shu Ch'ing-ch'un,, 1899-1966, Chinese writer. He wrote his first novels while teaching Chinese at the Univ. of London's School of Oriental Studies (1924-30). He continued to teach and write in China during the 1930s, receiving high praise for his novel Camel Xiangzi (1939, tr. 1981). In the 1950s he wrote a number of popular plays with Marxist themes, including The Teahouse (1958), but fell victim to the Red Guards at the outset of the Cultural Revolution and was either murdered or driven to suicide. His fiction was noted for its farcical tone. Translations of his work include The Crescent Moon and Other Stories (1985) and The Two Mas (1984).