Pa Chin (Ba Jin) was the pen name of the Chinese author Li Fei-kan (born 1904). An idealist of humanitarian passion and revolutionary fervor, he was one of China's most prolific and beloved novelists of the 1930s and 1940s.

Born into a large, landowning family in Chengtu, Szechwan, Pa Chin suffered the loss of his parents and many other beloved ones while still a boy. He was active in school and eagerly read the new publications spawned by the May Fourth movement of 1919. His need for love and his vast sympathy determined his course of reading, and an early encounter with a tract by Prince Kropotkin made him a confirmed anarchist. In 1923 he left Chengtu for Shanghai and went on to Nanking to complete his high school education. He returned to Shanghai in 1925 to prepare for a literary career. In January 1927, at the age of 23, he left for France...