Ai Qing, << eye chihng >> (1910-1996), a Chinese poet, was a strong supporter of the doctrines of the Chinese leader Mao Zedong, whose Communist Party gained control of China in 1949. Ai Qing was later denounced for right-wing (anti-Communist) views and banned from writing for more than 20 years. Ai Qing was allowed to publish his work again during the 1970’s and became an important literary personality in the 1980’s and 1990’s. See China (The Cultural Revolution).
Ai Qing, whose real name was Jiang Haizheng, was born on March 27, 1910, in Jinhua, Zhejiang Province, the son of a rich landowner. From 1928 to 1932, he studied painting in Paris and developed an appreciation for Western literature. He began to write poetry, which became increasingly political in nature, and he was imprisoned for radical political activities in Shanghai. In 1936, he published Dayanhe My Nurse, a collection of poems that dwelt on the miserable condition of China’s peasants and also included his memories of France. He became a follower of Mao Zedong, and wrote poems praising Mao and promoting the Communist cause. In 1949, after the success of the Communist revolution, he helped edit a literary magazine and served on various cultural committees. As a supporter of free expression and of the role of the writer as social critic, he attracted the opposition of hard-line Communists. He was denounced as a rightist and officially censured in 1957.
Ai Qing was forbidden to write for the next 21 years. Until 1975, he was forced to live on isolated collective farms in Heilongjiang and Xinjiang. His work did not return to print again until 1978. The following year, he became vice chairman of the China Writers’ Association and soon resumed his role as a cultural official. The appearance of some of his poems in translation as Selected Poems of Ai Qing (1982) helped establish his international reputation as a poet. His Complete Works appeared in five volumes in 1991. Ai Qing died on May 6, 1996.
