Yu-chien Kuan | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kuan in 2009 | |||||||||
| Born | Guan Yuqian 18 February 1931 Guangzhou, Guangdong, China | ||||||||
| Died | 22 November 2018 (aged 87) Berlin, Germany | ||||||||
| Occupation | Sinologist, writer and translator | ||||||||
| Language | Chinese, German, English | ||||||||
| Nationality | Chinese and German | ||||||||
| Alma mater | Beijing Foreign Studies University, University of Hamburg | ||||||||
| Period | 1970s–2018 | ||||||||
| Subject | China | ||||||||
| Spouse | Meizhen (divorced) Petra Häring-Kuan | ||||||||
| Parents | Guan Yiwen Yan Zhongyun | ||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 關愚謙 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 关愚谦 | ||||||||
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Yu-chien Kuan or Guan Yuqian (Chinese: 关愚谦; 18 February 1931 – 22 November 2018) was a Chinese-born German sinologist, writer and translator. The son of a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official, he was denounced as a "rightist" and persecuted during the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Cultural Revolution. This drove him to escape from China using a Japanese passport stolen from his workplace. He landed in Egypt and spent a year and half in prison for illegal entry, before being admitted to West Germany in 1969 as a political refugee.
In Germany, he earned a Ph.D. from the University of Hamburg, became a sinology professor at the university and served as an advisor to politicians including Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. He published 26 books, including ten co-authored with his wife, Petra Häring-Kuan. He also collaborated with Wolfgang Kubin to translate the works of Lu Xun into German.