Bulletin Number Five 1984

27th Congregation Ci t at ions Mr. L i Fei-kan (Ba Jin) Exactly eight decades ago, a strong-headed and unusual child was bom to an old official's family in Chengdu in Western China. Growing up in the midst o f loving parents and siblings, decadent clansmen, old traditional culture and radical new thoughts, he developed into a fighter against oppression and in justice, w ith a strong, independent character. He le ft his disintegrating fam ily at nineteen for studies in Shanghai, and responding to the beckoning o f the home o f revolution, went abroad to France four years later. By the side o f the Pantheon, in the tolls o f the Notre Dame and in a squalid apartment in the Latin quarters, he became immersed in the spirit o f great writers such as Rousseau, Hugo, Tolstoy and Gorky. Agony, solitude and passion began to rush o ff his pen, and a life-long career o f writing has thus taken root in him. After returning to Shanghai, he, day and night, in an empty room, 'forgot himself and forgot all that surrounded him ', only feeling 'the turbulent stream o f life rushing forward', compelling him to write non- stop o f the many only too familiar people and events swirling in his head, and to let out the maddening love and hatred, joy and agony pent up inside him. Just like that, w ithin the short span o f four to five years, this young man who was not quite th irty published no less than ten novels and novelettes, which enthralled the new generation o f intelligentsia and put the contemporary literary circle in a stir. Among these works were Destruction and New Life which were searches for the road to revolution, Autumn in Spring which was an accusation against pre-arranged marriage, and Fog ， Rain and Lightning in the Trilogy o f Love, but the best known and most powerful was his autobiographical novel Family, which was an attack on the traditional social system. The young man was no other than Ba Jin, a dominant figure on the modern Chinese literary scene and for sixty years the most conscientious author who never gave up on his writing. The guns o f January 28 at Gate North shattered the calm o f everyday life ， and also brought political pressure. From then on, Ba Jin travelled frequently to Beijing, Tienjin ， Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and for the time being he had to channel his energy to short pieces and translation. A fter full-scale war w ith Japan broke out on July 7, 1937, he resumed work on novels, completing the last two o f the Turbulent Stream Trilogy, Spring and Autumn, and then made his way to the rear area in the South West, where he wrote the War Trilogy Fire. War and travels broadened his view and deepened his thoughts, and he completed three more novels around the time when victory finally came: Leisure Garden, Ward Number Four 2 NEWS