Li Yaotang (25 November 1904 – 17 October 2005), better known by his pen name Ba Jin or his courtesy name Li Feigan, was a Chinese anarchist, translator, and writer. In addition to his impact on Chinese literature, he also wrote three original works in Esperanto, and as a political activist he wrote The Family.

Name

He was born as Li Yaotang, with alternate name Li Feigan or Li Pei Kan (in Wade–Giles). The first word of his pen name may have been taken from Ba Enbo, his classmate who committed suicide in Paris, which was admitted by himself, or from the first syllable of the surname of the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin; and the last character of which is the Chinese equivalent of the last syllable of Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin (克鲁泡特金, Ke-lu-pao-te-jin).

Biography

On November 25, 1904, Li Yaotang was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, into a wealthy Li family. The family's wealth came mainly from the land acquired by his grandfather and father when they were officials, and Li Yaotang sometimes described his family as a "typical landlord's family". In 1919, Ba read Kropotkin's An Appeal to the Young and converted to anarchism. It was partly owing to boredom that Ba Jin began to write his first novel, Miewang 灭亡 (“Destruction”). In France, Ba Jin continued his anarchist activism, translating many anarchist works, including Kropotkin's Ethics, into Chinese, which was mailed back to Shanghai's anarchist magazines for publication. During the Cultural Revolution, Ba Jin was heavily persecuted as a counter-revolutionary. His wife since 1944, Xiao Shan, died of cancer in 1972. He asked that a Cultural Revolution Museum be set up in 1981. The Shantou Cultural Revolution Museum referenced the influence of Ba Jin on its establishment through displaying a depiction of his at the entrance as well as a quote of his, "Every town in China should establish a museum about the Cultural Revolution." Ba Jin's works were heavily influenced by foreign writers, including Émile Zola, Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Herzen, Anton Chekhov, and Emma Goldman. Ba Jin suffered from Parkinson's disease beginning in 1983. The illness confined him to Huadong Hospital in Shanghai from 1998.

English translations

Ba Jin stories in collections

Works

Films