Tuesday, November 25, 2014

[Daily Bleed]: 11/25 BA JIN

The river I have under my tongue,   
    Unimaginable water, my little boat,   
    And curtains lowered, let's speak.

   
    — Paul Eluard 1895-1952, "The River"

Daily Bleed web page,
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/1125.htm

NOVEMBER 25
BA JIN
Leading Chinese novelist of 20th-century independence, lifelong
revolutionist, anarchist.

Purged during the Cultural Revolution.
Nominated for the 1975 & 2001 Nobel Prize in Literature.

        The 2001 nomination letter notes,

        "Ba Jin has made great efforts in fighting for man's freedom,
        democracy,   man's psychic liberation; his in-depth exploration
        about human nature & man's esteem has been recorded in the
        history of Chinese culture."

        http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bright/bajin/bajinarchive.html

        ____________________________

        BUY NOTHING DAY.

        England: CATHERNING DAY: traditionally, young women make merry today.
   
        FESTIVAL OF SHADOW ECONOMIES.   
        ____________________________


 1871 -- Japanese socialist, writer & historian Toshihiko Sakai lives (d.1933). Best
known for his translation work with Shūsui Kōtoku, with whom he co-founded Heimin
Shimbun
(Common Peoples' Newspaper). They were the first to translate The
Communist Manifesto
into Japanese before Kōtoku became an anarchist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshihiko_Sakai

1904 -- Ba Jin (aka Pa Chin [pseud. of Li Feigan]) lives (1904-2005).
Chinese novelist, discovered anarchism with the reading of Peter Kropotkin
& Emma Goldman & created his pseudonym Ba (from Bakunin ) & Jin (from
Kropotkin). Cruelly persecuted, but finally, in the decade of Deng Xiao-ping's
reforms, he was elected honorary chairman of Chinese Writers' Association.
Elected a contender for the 2001 Nobel Prize.

     Ba Jin was constantly harassed by the Communists, & in 1949, was forced
     to rewrite his stories, removing or replacing all anarchist references with
     Communist ones.

     & in 1966 he was again in disgrace, branded

      "A great poisonous weed"

      & his writings condemned as seditious.

      http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/11ref.htm#25/1904a

1921 -- Novelist & radical Nathanael West flunks out of Tufts, where
he got in by falsifying his high school transcripts. Befriended many
struggling writers & artists as a hotel clerk. Wrote Day of the Locust,Miss Lonelyhearts, A Cool Million.
http://www.literarytraveler.com/articles/nathanaelwestcaliforni/

1947 -- US: The Hollywood Ten is blacklisted.

1957 -- Radical Mexican muralist Diego Rivera dies, México City, Mexico.
http://www.DiegoRivera.com/

1968 -- US: American socialist, novelist, politician, Upton Sinclair dies.

1974 -- England: Nick Drake is no longer a stranger among us, dies
after eating his corn flakes, a possible suicide.

     “Fame is but a fruit tree —
     So very unsound.
     It can never flourish
     Till its stalk is in the ground.
     So men of fame
     Can never find a way
     Till time has flown
     Far from their dying day.”

2001 -- US: No anarchy club in Kanawha County Schools! Katie Sierra,
a 15-year-old tenth grader at Sissonville High School in Charleston, West
Virginia is suspended for anti-war sentiments & her desire to start a
student anarchist club.
http://www.zpub.com/notes/noanarchyclub.html

2005 -- France: Colloque d'Histoire, « la Charte d’Amiens a 100 ans » lieu
de naissance de Victor Griffuelhes, secrétaire général de la CGT en 1906
et rédacteur de la Charte avec Émile Pouget. (November 25-26).

 
_______________________

“We can comprehend this world only by contesting it as a whole ...

The root of the prevailing lack of imagination cannot be grasped unless
one is able to imagine what is lacking, that is, what is missing, hidden,
forbidden, & yet possible, in modern life.”


                                                  — Situationist International


---auntie copyright 1997-2014

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