Ai Qing was born in Fantianjiang village (),
Jinhua county, in eastern China's
Zhejiang province. After entering Hangzhou Xihu Art School in 1928, on the advice of principal
Lin Fengmian, he went abroad and studied in Paris the following spring. From 1929 to 1932 while studying in France, besides learning art of
Renoir and
Van Gogh, the philosophy of
Kant and
Hegel, he also studied modern poets such as
Mayakovsky and was especially influenced by Belgian poet
Verhaeren. After returning to
Shanghai, China in May 1932, he joined China Left Wing Artist Association, and was arrested in July for opposing the
Kuomintang. During his imprisonment, Ai Qing translated Verhaeren's poems and wrote his first book
Dayanhe—My Nanny (), "Reed Flute" (), and "Paris" (). He was finally released in October 1935. After the start of the
Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, Ai Qing wrote "
Snow falls on China's Land" () after arriving at
Wuhan to support the war effort. In 1938, he moved to
Guilin to become the editor of
Guixi Daily newspaper. In 1940, he became the dean of the Chinese department at
Chongqing YuCai University. In 1941, he moved to
Yan'an, and joined the
Chinese Communist Party in the subsequent year. Beginning in 1949, he was on cultural committees. He was editor of
Poetry Magazine, and associate editor of ''People's Literature''. However, in 1957, during the
Anti-Rightist Movement, he defended
Ding Ling and was accused of "rightism". He was exiled to farms in
northeast China in 1958 and was transferred to
Xinjiang in 1959 by the Communist authorities. During the period of the
Cultural Revolution he was forced to work daily cleaning the communal toilets for his village of about 200 people, a physically demanding job he was required to carry out for five years, then aged in his 60s. According to an account by his son
Ai Weiwei, he lost vision in one of his eyes due to lack of nutrition. He was not allowed to publish his works
Return Song () and
Ode to Light () until he was reinstated in 1979. In 1979, he was vice-chairman of the Chinese Writers Association. He made a second journey to France in 1980, and in 1985 French president
François Mitterrand awarded him the title of Commander of the
Order of Arts and Letters. ==Family==