About the author of The Boy Who Reached for the Stars

Ji Xian (1913-2013), whose ancestral home is Shaanxi, was born in Qingyuan County, Hebei Province. His original name was Lu Yu, and he used the pen name Louis. He began to publish poems in the spring of 1928. He graduated from Suzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1933 and edited his own "Collected Poems of Yi Shi". Representative poetry collections include: "City on Fire", "Thirty Years Old Collection", etc. In 1934, he founded the poetry magazine "Volcano". In 1936, he traveled east to Japan. After returning to China, he founded the monthly magazine "New Poems" with Dai Wangshu and others. He went to Taiwan in 1948 and retired after teaching at Taipei Chenggong Middle School for 25 years. Moved to the United States in 1976. In 1953, he founded and edited the quarterly "Modern Poetry", and in 1956 he established the Modern School.

Ji Xian is one of the three veterans of Taiwanese poetry (the other two are Qin Zihao and Zhong Dingwen) and enjoys a high reputation in Taiwanese poetry. Ji Xian not only created a lot of works, but also made great achievements in theory. He is an advocate of modern poetry. He advocates writing poems that are "knowledgeable" and emphasizes "horizontal transplantation." The poetry style is lively, good at ridicule, and enjoys joking. His poems are very charming and innovative, which inspired later scholars to imitate him and became a banner in Taiwan's poetry circle.