Beijing Group Gives 500 Books to Yenching

In a ceremony yesterday, the Beijing branch of the Chinese Writers Association (CWA) donated about 500 books by 240 authors from across China to the Harvard-Yenching Library.

The CWA's U.S. branch, headquartered in West Haven, Conn., coordinated the donation. Similar gifts will go to Columbia University and Yale University during the next two weeks.

"We were told that the donation of books to Harvard was the largest," said James K.M. Cheng, librarian of the Yenching Library.

The bequest comes a year and three days after Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Harvard. During his visit he announced the donation of Twenty-Four Histories, a classic work on Chinese history that was newly-published with comments by Mao Zedong, to the library.

Jiang said in his speech last year that he gave the books "in order to promote the study of China's past and present."

All the books donated by the CWA are written in Chinese and represent various aspects of modern Chinese literature.

Each book is dedicated to the Yenching Library and carries its author's signature, which Cheng called its "real importance." The signatures elevate the value of the mostly paper-back books.

The books cover a wide range of subject including fiction, essays, literary criticism, drama and film.

Cheng estimated the monetary value of the collection to be between $5,000 and $7,000. About two-thirds of the collection is paperback and one-third of it is hardcover, he said.

Four delegates from the CWA of China arrived at Harvard at 11 a.m. yesterday.

The donation ceremony began at 1:30 p.m. with the four delegates, the Chinese consul general in New York and two of his assistants, and twelve members from the CWA of America in attendance.

Professor Tu Weiming, director of the Harvard-Yenching Institute, Professor Peter K. Bol, chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Professor of Chinese Literature Leo O. Lee, Nancy M. Cline, Larsen librarian of Harvard College, and Cheng represented Harvard at the ceremony.

Following the ceremony, more than 70 people attended a seminar that Lee conducted in Chinese on modern Chinese literature, his specialty.

Members of the CWA of China said they felt honored to be at Harvard. Xiang Qian, one of the visiting delegates, wrote a message in the library guest book in Chinese. Cheng translated it as: "Harvard, I have been thinking of you all my life. I would like to dedicate whatever I can to you."