Ba Jin(orig. Li Yaotang)

1904 - Li Yaotang was born 25th of Novrmber in Chengdu, Sichuan.

1920 - Enrolled in the Chengdu Foreign Language Specialist School.

1927 - Travelled to France for studies, where he first used the pen-name Ba Jin. While there he began writing his first novel, Miewang ("Destruction").

1928 - Returned to Shanghai to continued writing and working on translations. During the next 10 years, Li acted as editor to several important publishing firms and periodicals, as well as composing the works which he is best known for - Family (1931), The Love Trilogy Fog (1931), Rain (1933) and Lightning (1935), the novellas Autumn in Spring and A Dream of the Sea, the short story collection Mengya ("Germination") and prose writings in Fuchou ("Vengeance") and Shen, Gui, Ren ("Gods, Ghosts and Men").

1977 - Persecuted as a counter revolutionary and was rehabilitated.

1978-1986 - The most significant work of his later years is probably the discursive writings in Suixiang Lu (translated as "Random Thoughts", in which, among other things, he reflected on the Cultural Revolution in a painfully honest manner and asked specifically for a Cultural Revolution Museum to be set up as a deterrent for future generations.

1983 - Suffered from ailment Parkinson's Disease which almost completely debilitated him and confined him to a hospital unable to speak and walk toward the last few years of his life.

2005 - Ba Jin died of cancer in Shanghai at the age of 100 (101 by Chinese reckoning).

His death marked the end of an era for Chinese literature, especially since he was the last major writer to live through the May Fourth Movement.

Asteroid 8315 Bajin is named in his honour.