The Man Who Made China a Literate Nation –

Zhou Youguang is the scholar who invented Pinyin(拼音), a system of

romanisation for Chinese characters. Since 1958, Chinese primary school

students have learnt Pinyin, before they learn characters. Thanks to him, one

billion Chinese have become literate – the greatest contribution by a linguist in

history. After an extraordinary life, he died in January 2017 at the age of 111. He had several lives – a banker in Shanghai, New York and London;

supplying food and textiles for the army and ordinary people during World War

Two;: after 1949, a linguist. He lived through all the campaigns of the Maoist

period, spending 28 months in a labour camp in west China. He wrote 49 books,

many critical of the Soviet Union, the Soviet model used in China and of Mao

Zedong. In the last 20 years of his life, he was one of the few intellectuals in

China willing to speak the truth in public. He lived so long thanks to an innate

optimism, intellectual curiosity about everything and a Buddhist-like humility to

see himself and his belongings as of little value.

Mark O’Neill was born in London, England, and educated at Marlborough College and New College, Oxford. After working in Washington D.C., Belfast, and Manchester, he moved to Hong Kong in 1978 and has lived in Asia ever since. After working in journalism and teaching, he started writing books full-time in 2006. This is his 15th book. Of the other 14, nine have editions in Chines...

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