The year 1993 is the centenary of our father’s birth.
Father was a poet as well as a revolutionary. However,
his poetical writings are unlike those of some men of letters
which involve private concerns. As the saying goes, “poetry
expresses genuine feelings." There is not one line or one
episode in father’s poems but portrays some soul-stirring,
heroic deeds of the Chinese people in their revolutionary
struggles. In the West, there is the word “epic." Father’s
poetical writings, in their entirety, deserve to be called a
spectacular epic of the Chinese revolution.
Father was a man with very rich emotions, which he often
crystallized into poems, full of vigor and life. The great
sorrows and joys, alive in his poems through expressions
magnificent or popular, all bear witness to his profound love
for the people. To read his poems is to get to understand him
as a man.
Though father has long since left this world, his poetical writing
now form a part of the cultural heritage of our nation and even
become gems in world literature. Enormous is their impact on
the present world.
On the occasion of the centenary of father’s birth, China
Translation & Publishing Corporation plans to produce a new
English version of our father’s poems. We pay tribute to his
beloved memory by writing a short preface to the new book.