Chao Shu-li (Zhao Shuli) (1906-1970) a novelist and short story writer is best remembered for his early novels and short stories depicting rural society in early 20th-century China. Coming from a peasant background himself Chao Shu-li employed forms of expression and story-telling that were rooted in this society contributing to the emergence of a new proletarian literature vaunted by Mao and characteristic of the revolutionary era.