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Ba Jin, sur l'origine d'un nom de plume

1990; Association française d'études chinoises; Volume: 9; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3406/etchi.1990.1129

2111-4544

Angel Pino,

Communism, Protests, Social Movements

According to an enduring legend, Ba Jin, the pen-name that brought the writer fame and success, originated in the combination of two syllables extracted from the patronyms of two Russian anarchist theoreticians : Bakunin (in Chinese : BA-ku-ning) and Kropotkin (Ke-lu-pao-te-JIN). However, Ba Jin himself has argued that the character "Ba" was chosen in memory of a former fellow-student called B A Enbo ; as to the character "Jin," it referred to Kropotkin only incidentally. It seems that this explanation, put forward by Ba Jin as early as 1958 , was hardly ever accepted, although it has been repeatedly given confirmation by the writer. This article tries to investigate into the origin of the above-mentioned legend and to show that there is no reason to doubt Ba Jin's sincerity.