On October 17, 2005, Ba Jin died in Shanghai at the age of 100. He had been ill for years, with Parkinson's disease and other conditions, and he had spent much of his later life in hospital. His real name was Li Yaotang, and he was born in Chengdu in Sichuan province in 1904. He was one of the best known Chinese writers of the twentieth century.
He began to publish in the 1920s and became known in the 1930s with the novel Family, the first part of a set called Torrent, which followed the decline of a wealthy family as its younger members tried to break free of its rules. Spring and Autumn completed the set. The books were read widely among students, and they were seen as an argument against the old family system and arranged marriage. The books sold well. He was influenced by Russian and French writers, including Tolstoy and Zola.
He was also a translator and an editor. The work was heavy. He translated works from Russian, French and English, including Pushkin and Herzen, and he wrote essays and reportage, notably a set of dispatches from the Korean front in the 1950s. In 1957 he became editor of Harvest, a literary magazine, and he held the post for many years, and he worked to keep older writers in print.
The Cultural Revolution brought him under attack. The years were hard. He was made to do manual work and to write confessions, and his wife, Xiao Shan, died in 1972 partly because she was refused treatment. His memoir Random Thoughts, published from 1978, set out his own account of those years and caused wide debate inside China. He was elected president of the Chinese Writers Association in 1985 and had a long period in hospital before he died. His work remains in print.