In this book by the American Book Award winner Ha Jin about the legendary Chinese poet Li Bai, the phrases "still today" and "still" are often used. Even today, Chinese make pilgrimages in the footsteps of Li Bai, "even today" the grave of his sister is well maintained. A calligraphy from his pen, which was in Mao Tse-tung's possession for several years, has survived "to this day". "Even today," Li Bai's poems are memorized at school and quoted in boozy rounds or as an invocation of friendship.

Uwe Ebbinghaus

Editor in the feuilleton.

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This vital commemoration is all the more astonishing because Li Bai, who is also known as Li Po or Li Bo, is not a poet of the eighteenth or a later century – in Germany a similar cult is usually only practiced around Goethe – but one from the eighth century. While at the time of Charlemagne, German literature was still in its infancy – there were only a few surviving texts of use – at the same time in China a profound literary education was already a matter of course for rulers and high officials. Even then, people followed in the footsteps of even earlier poets such as Tao Yuanming, at the imperial court there was the post of "Harmonic Regulator", whose task it was to promote the refinement of verse construction, the title of "Carefree Scholar", which went hand in hand with free wine consumption and gifts of money on journeys, was desirable. The Chinese bookstores of the time had only a few meters of shelves, but you could easily buy the latest poetry in the then Chinese capital Chang'an.

A "turtle angler in the ocean"

As many vivid details as Ha Jin can gather about the temporal background of the "exiled immortal" Li Bai, the source situation for the poet himself is uncertain. There are only a few and mostly very subjective contemporary testimonies about Li Bai', so that one can say: Actually, Ha Jin's biography rather retells a legend to which Li Bai's poetry himself made a significant contribution. Aware of this circumstance, Ha Jin has written an emphatically empathetic portrait in which phrases such as "Indeed, tears ran down his cheeks while Bai was writing these lines" and the peak of objectivity is reached in the sentence: "All Li Bai biographers agree that he was traveling in the area around Mount Tai in the late summer of 742."

Li Bai's appearance is said to have been characterized by an impressive stature, a fierce look and a pronounced nose. He was a "strong man with a straight back," writes fellow poet Gao Shi, carefree and self-assured. He was also adept at sword fighting, not entirely dissimilar to the character of the somewhat boastful, but very likeable seventh samurai from Kurosawa's classic film, waving his long sword around.