I am the translator of this book and I wrote a short Introduction in it as well, which sets up the historical background for Ba Jin’s writing as well as his literary importance.

The Autobiography of Ba Jin was originally written in Chinese by the famed 20th century Mainland Chinese author (Ba Jin) in 1934 when he was only 30. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in the 1970s, when he was actually forbidden to publish because he was being criticized during the Cultural Revolution.

In this book, he describes his childhood in a large, wealthy Sichuanese clan, including between 80–100 relatives: the grandfather, his two wives, all the adult sons and their wives and children, and eventually the grandchildren, plus dozens of servants

Ba Jin goes on to describe the fall of the Qing Dynasty, the rise of the warlord era, his own flight from the family compound to go to school in France, and his early success as a writer.