Su Xuelin

Su Xuelin was a Chinese writer and literary scholar, who was born into a family of officials and received a classical education. She was one of the first female students to enter Chinese schools after the 1911-1912 revolution that overthrew the Qing dynasty. She traveled to France in 1922 to pursue further studies, and converted to Catholicism in 1924 despite death threats from her anti-religious fellow students. She returned to China in 1925 and taught at various universities, such as Soochow University and Wuhan University. She was recognized as one of the "four guardians" of the May Fourth New Literature, the flourishing golden age of modern Chinese literature. She was also an outspoken opponent of the communists, and left for Hong Kong in 1949 to work as an editor and translator for the Catholic Truth Society. She later moved to Taiwan, where she taught at National Taiwan Normal University and National Cheng Kung University. She shifted her research focus to ancient texts, such as those written by Qu Yuan, and Greek and Roman mythology. She died of natural causes in Tainan, Taiwan, on 21 April 1999, at the age of 102. She was posthumously awarded the Order of the Republic, the highest state honor in China.