Chengdu Historical Celebrities, Their Deeds and Characteristics

On November 25, 1904, modern literary scholar and translator Ba Jin was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, with an ancestral home in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province. Ba Jin's original name was Li Yaotang, and his character was Fu Gan.

In 1920, Ba Jin was admitted to the Chengdu Foreign Language School, initiated the organization of the "Even Society", and served as the editor-in-chief of the "Voice of the Common People". 1923, he went to Shanghai, Nanjing and other places to study, and in 1925, he translated Kropotkin's Bread Slightly Taken and other writings. 1927, he went to Paris to study, and the following year he wrote his long story "Extinction". He returned to China at the end of 1928. Since 1931, his literary creation entered a period of prosperity, and he wrote 10 middle-length novels such as the long novel "Riptide" (i.e. "Home"), 10 collections of short stories, and 6 collections of essays. He and Jin Yi edited Literary Quarterly and Literary Quarterly Monthly, and became the chief editor of Cultural Life Publishing House, responsible for editing Cultural Life Series, Literary Series, and Translation Series. In November 1936, Lu Xun, Guo Moruo and 21 others published the Declaration of Freedom of Expression and Unity in the Literary and Artistic World. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, he became an editorial board member of Shanghai Salvation Daily and a director of the All-China Association of Literary and Artistic Circles Against the Enemy, and traveled to Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Hankou, Guilin, and Kunming and Chongqing in the southwest of China. He published long novels such as Spring, Autumn and Resting Garden and short story collections such as The Grass of Return. After the victory of the war, he published the Chinese novels The Fourth Ward and Cold Night. After the founding of New China, he was a delegate to the first, second and third sessions of the National People's Congress, and served as vice-chairman of the China Federation of Literature, vice-chairman and chairman of the China Writers' Association, chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Federation of Literature, chairman of the Shanghai branch of the Writers' Association, chairman of the International PEN Association, and editor-in-chief of Harvest, etc. He was awarded the Dante Prize of Italy in April, 1982, and was awarded the Légion d'Honneur of France in May, 1983. He is the editor of the Collected Works of Ba Jin and the Complete Works of Ba Jin.

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