Diary of a Madman (Lu Xun)

"Diary of a Madman", also translated as "A Madman's Diary" (Chinese: 狂人日記; pinyin: Kuángrén Rìjì) is a short story by the Chinese writer Lu Xun, published in 1918. It was the first and one of the most influential works written in vernacular Chinese in Republican-era China, and would become a cornerstone of the New Culture Movement. Lu Xun's stories often critiqued early 20th-century Chinese society, and "Diary of a Madman" established a new language and revolutionary figure of Chinese literature, an attempt to challenge conventional thinking and traditional understanding.

The diary form and the idea of the madman who sees reality more clearly than those around him were inspired by Nikolai Gogol's short story "Diary of a Madman". Lu Xun's "madman" sees "cannibalism" both in his family and the village around him, and he then finds cannibalism in the Confucian classics which had long been credited with a humanistic concern for the mutual obligations of society, and thus used to justify the superiority of Confucian civilization. The story can be read as a sardonic attack on traditional Chinese culture and society and a call for a new cultural direction.

"Diary of a Madman" is the opening story in Lu Xun's first collection, and has often been referred to as "China's first modern short story". Along with Chen Hengzhe's "One Day", it was among the most influential modern vernacular Chinese works published after the Xinhai Revolution. It was selected as one of the 100 best books in history by the Bokklubben World Library, and listed as one of the ten best Asian novels of all time by The Telegraph in 2014.