Eminent lexicographer helped millions with his work
Lu Gusun, the professor of English language and literature at Shanghai’s Fudan University who served as editorin-chief of the renowned English-Chinese Dictionary, died on Thursday afternoon at Xinhua Hospital in the city at the age of 77, according to the university.
Lu had been hospitalized since suffering a cerebral hemorrhage in the early hours of July 21 at his home in Shanghai.
A native of Yuyao, Zhejiang province, Lu was widely known as an eminent Chinese lexicographer and a leading figure in the compila- tion of the EnglishChinese Dictionary, widely acknowledged in China as the best dictionary of its kind.
It is the first inde- pendent, comprehensive bilingual dictionary compiled by Chinese scholars and has influenced millions who are learning English as a second language. The first edition of the dictionary, with about 5,000 pages and 200,000 entries, was drafted in 1975, with the approval of thenpremier Zhou Enlai, and finished in 1991.
To better focus on the project, Lu adopted three rules in his personal life: He would make no overseas trips, have no involvement in other books and accept no part-time jobs.
Lu taught English literature for 51 years at Fudan University after graduating there. He retired from teaching about two years ago and had fully devoted himself to editing the third edition of the English-Chinese Dictionary with his students and younger professors at the university.
People close to Lu said that, knowledge and achievement aside, what influenced them most were his integrity and spirit.
“He was undoubtedly a man of great learning. But what I admired most about him was his tenacity in not compromising, despite all the difficulties he went through during the years of political turmoil and other things ,” said Qu Weiguo, dean of Fudan University’s College of Foreign Language and Literature and a longtime colleague of Lu’s.
Huang Yuning, a senior editor at Shanghai Translation Publishing House who worked with Lu on several translations after 2000, remembered him as “a man with the utmost complicated talent and diligence, yet the most simple, if not childlike, attitude toward people and the world .”