Interviewee: Ha Jin, chair professor at Boston University, director of the Department of Creative Writing, academician of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, academician of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, author of "The Road to Heaven: The Biography of Li Bai".
Interviewer: Yan Wu, senior media professional, visiting scholar at the Department of Media and Communication, City University of Hong Kong.
This article originally appeared in the 28th issue of "Xinrui Weekly" and was titled "Exclusive Interview with Ha Jin: There are Three Li Bais You Should Remember". Reprinted with permission from the interviewer, here is the full unabridged version.
On March 20, 2015, to commemorate the next day's "World Poetry Day", the United Nations Postal Administration issued a set of six stamps - each stamp has a poem printed in the corresponding mother tongue. Famous poems - including Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Arabic. Li Bai's "Silent Night Thoughts" is printed on one of them as a representative of Chinese poetry.
This tidbit remotely echoes the "Li Bai" entry in the 1975 edition of "The Encyclopedia America": "Li Bai and Du Fu are world-recognized great poets who originated in China. "Some foreign scholars also say that "Li Bai's poetry is the voice of mankind." Li Bai's poems began to be introduced to Western readers in the 1830s. In 1915, the American Imagist poet Ezra Pound (1885-1972) compiled and translated the "Chinese Collection" based on the English notes left by the Orientalist scholar Fenollosa when he studied Chinese ancient poetry in Japan. "(Cathay)", which contains the translation of Li Bai's "Changgan Xing", which has become a masterpiece of modern English poetry. In 1950, "The Poetry and career of Lipo, 701-762 A.D." written by British sinologist Arthur Waley (1888-1966) was published. . In 1981, American sinologist Stephen Owen (also translated as "Stephen Owen") published his special book "The Great Age of Chinese Poetry: the High T'ang", which he translated 35 years later. The six-volume collection of Du Fu's poems was published.
However, there has not been a complete biography of Li Bai in the English-speaking world in the past two hundred years.
In the spring of 2020, Beijing October Literature and Art Publishing House introduced and launched "The Road to Heaven: The Biography of Li Bai" by Ha Jin, the most influential Chinese-American writer in the United States. The book was translated from the English version of The Banished published by Pantheon early last year. Immortal: A Life of Li Bai, Ha Jin completely connects and retells Li Bai's legendary life course for the first time: entering Shu as a child, leaving Shu as a youth, two marriages, visiting in the prime of life, being exiled in old age, and dying in a foreign country...