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Ba Jin, one of China’s most acclaimed writers, died at age 101 in Shanghai on Oct. 17 after a six-year battle with cancer.
“We have lost one of the most sensitive hearts of our time and one of the most important and widely read Chinese writers of the 20th century,” said Chen Sihe, professor and dean of the Chinese Language and Literature Department of Fudan University .
A Brief Biography
Born into a wealthy feudal official’s family in Chengdu, capital of southwest China’s Sichuan province in 1904, Ba received a good education under private tutorship in his hometown and later in Shanghai.
Ba’s given name was Li Yaotang or Li Fugan. He chose the pen name “Ba Jin” in memory of Baranpo, one of his schoolmates in France who committed suicide because he detested the world and its ways. The word “Jin” was proposed by a Russian schoolmate studying philosophy.
In 1927, Ba went to study in France, where he started his literature career and completed his first novel Destruction a year later. It was a tale of revolution and romance, which caused a sensation when published in Fiction
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| A family photo in 1907 |
Monthly in 1929.
Ba returned to China in the winter of 1928, settling in Shanghai. From there he wrote and translated numerous books, including novels, short stories, and essays, completing a total of 13 million words. He was best known for his trilogy Jiliu (Torrent), which was written between 1931 and 1940, and included three semi-autobiographical novels.
Some of his strongest writings were created during China’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1937-45), including the short novels “A Garden of Repose” (1944), “Ward No 4″ (1946) and “Cold Nights” (1947), according to Chen, who has carried out academic research on the writer and his works for two decades.
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Ba Jin as a small boy
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In 1949, Ba was elected standing committee member of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles , and became vice president of Shanghai Literature Federation in 1950. He twice visited the frontlines during the war in Korea for interviews. Helater published two prose collections. In 1960, he was elected vice president of the China Federation of Literature and Art Circles as well as the China Writers’ Association, and suffered brutal persecution during the Cultural Revolution.
After 1978 when the revolution came to an end, Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong-based newspaper , published a series of Ba Jin’s essays under the title of “Sui Xiang Lu.” Many of his works are now available in other languages. He also received many international honors, such as the Dante International Award of Honor and the French Award of Honor, for his enormous contributions to world literature.
In July 1999, one of the asteroids found by Chinese scientists in 1997 was named after Ba, who was then the chairman of the Chinese Writers’ Association. In 2003, the State Council awarded him the title of “People’s Writer.”
Ba was elected a deputy to the 1st through the 5th National People’s Congress es (NPC) and a member of the Standing Committee of the 5th NPC and vice chairman of the 6th, 7th and 8th National Committees of the 9th of the
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Ba Jin as a young man
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Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Ba was recognized as one of the greatest Chinese cultural masters in modern Chinese history and an outstanding publisher and editor.
Symbol of the 5.4 Youth Spirit
During his life, Ba witnessed the ups and downs, nightmares and wakening of the Chinese nation over a century. Accomplishing brilliant achievements in his literature career, Ba’s works had significant impact on Chinese society in two periods.
The first was from the beginning of his career to the founding of the People’s Republic of China , during which Ba influenced his readers as a young outstanding novelist. During that time, Ba, with his endless energy and creativity not only created a large number of novels and prose, but also took on periodicals and launched a publishing house, which was a huge sensation for the then literary circles.
（Source: chinaculture.org）
