Ba Jin

Ba Jin. Click here for original source

Childhood

Ba Jin (巴金), was born as Li Yaotang (李尧棠) on November 25, 1904 in Chengdu, Sichuan.

Li Yao Tang’s childhood and upbringing is much like his story, “Family”. He lived in a large estate. His parents died when he was young, so most of his upbringing was arranged by his grandfather, who was the domineering head of the house, and it was not until his grandfather’s death that Ba Jin was free to start pursuing his own goals and ambitions. When he was sixteen he enrolled in the Chengdu Foreign Language Specialist School with his older brother. There he began to broaden his horizons and started writing in the school’s literary journal, “ Crescent”, for which he wrote some free verse poetry. He also joined an anarchist group called “The Equality Society”.

In the years following his studies in Chengdu, he first moved to Shanghai, and then to Nanjing to study at the Southeast University (东南大学). While studying in Nanjing he continued to support the Equalist Society and actively voiced his opinions in writing as well as publicly demonstrating in strikes, etc. His first and foremost reason for leaving home to study was not for education, although he did study. The primary reason was to get away from his controlling family. In 1927 he found an opportunity to study abroad, which led him to Paris, France . Here he continued his correspondence with the anarchist movement, and branched to international correspondence to others in America. His living circumstances and a longing for home brought him back to China one year later in 1928.

Motivations

Ba Jin drew his inspiration from many different sources, one of which was Emma Goldman, an anarchist writer, who started a correspondence with him which lasted for many years. He referred to her as his “spiritual mother.”

He chose his pen name from the Chinese transliterations of Ba in Bakunin (Mikhail), and of the last syllable of the name Kropotkin (Pyotr), two Russian anarchist writers that he admired.

while he was in France he heard of two Italian men, Ferdinando Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who were imprisoned in America, They were fellow members of the anarchist movement. He wrote to them, and recieved a reply, recounting their story, which touched him deeply. He kept correspondence with them until they were executed. In memory of them he wrote a short story called “The Electric Chair” (电椅) .

Upon returning to Shanghai, he dove into his writing career, writing novels, short stories, as well as translating foreign works into Chinese. It was at this time that he wrote his most influential novel “Family” (家) which became part of a trilogy called “The Torrents Trilogy” also including “Spring” and “Autumn”.

By 1934, some of his writing received some negative attention and was blacklisted, which forced him to flee to Japan, using a fake name. He returned to China two years later, when things had cooled down.

From 1937-1941 he moved a lot, trying to escape the conflict of the war with Japan. He slowly made his way back to his ancestral home in Chengdu. There he saw the final results of his family’s traditions fade into history. When the war ended he moved back to Shanghai, where he continued writing.