Li Guangtian

Who is Li Guangtian?

Li Guangtian was a 20th-century Chinese essayist. Born into an indigent peasant family with the surname Wang, he was adopted by his uncle, and changed his surname into Li. In 1923, he entered the First Normal School of Shandong, and was arrested later because of recommending left-wing literature. In 1929, Li sat entrance examinations for and was accepted at the foreign language department of Beijing University. In 1936, The poetry anthology The Han Garden Collection co-written by Li, Bian Zhilin and He Qifang was published. He published three prose collections before the Second Sino-Japanese War: the Gallery Collection, the Silver Fox Collection, and the Quesuo Collection. After the outbreak of the war, he went into exile at southwest China. He wrote several essay collections during this time, including Outside the Circle, the Echoes and the Essays under the Sun. After 1949, he contributed himself into educational cause. He also did some research about the literature of the minority groups of China. He collated the long love poems like Ashymo of the Yi people and Xianxiu of the Dai people.