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The national Library of China in Beijing has made an official apology in Shanghai for losing part of the books and journals donated by Ba Jin -- one of China's most revered writers -- two decades ago, and library officials promised yesterday to make amends at the earliest.
A week ago, six issues of "The Dial" -- a world-renowned arts and culture journal founded by Scofield Thayer and dated from 1920 to 1929 -- sealed with Ba's signature unexpectedly appeared at a second-hand book market in Beijing.
Li hui, a Ba literature researcher who bought the issues, said in Beijing the vendors told him they had got them from the foreign periodicals department of the National Library of China when it disposed of old magazines.
When li Xiaolin, daughter of the writer whose real name is Li Yaotang, learned about it, she was angry, castigating the library for not doing justice to her father's rare donations.
She insisted that the library should return all the books, including some of Ba's manuscripts and "transfer them to other libraries where they can be preserved well."
The library's first reaction was to deny anything was amiss, claiming "all of Ba's donations were classified and preserved in special information banks." But, after further confirmation from Ba's family members and media reports, the library's vice directors Yang Bingyan and Chen Li flew to Shanghai last weekend and made an apology.
The library will invite experts to help it recheck Ba's donations.
According to the daughter, Ba, who is 99 and bedridden, donated nearly 7,000 books and journals to the library (formerly known as Beijing Library), including some rare books on early anarchism and socialism, sex science and customs and other works of famous writers.
He hoped the contributions would make the library owning one of the premier repositories in the world, said the daughter.
Ba began donating the books in 1981. Among the beneficiaries of the more than 30,000 books and 10,000 journals were the Contemporary Literature Museum of China, Beijing Library, and Shanghai Library.
Li said she didn't dare tell her father about the missing volume. "My father has loved books all his life, spending all his money and time on them. He would be shocked if he came to know about it. We don't want to give the library a hard time; we just want to ensure that it won't happen again. The books are a heritage for generations to come and should not be treated like garbage."
(eastday.com December 25, 2002)
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