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 He is the father of the prominent Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei, who participated in designing the Beijing National Stadium, and the painter Ai Xuan. He had two daughters with his second wife. Pen name In 1933, while being tortured and imprisoned by the Kuomintang and writing his book Dayan River — My Nanny, he went to write his surname (Jiang, ), but stopped at the first component "艹" due to his bitterness towards KMT leader Chiang Kai-shek. He resented sharing the same surname (Jiang/Chiang) and simply crossed out the rest of the character with an "X". This happens to be the Chinese character ài (), and since the rest of his name, Hǎi Chéng meant the limpidity of the sea, it implied the color of limpid water qīng (青, turquoise, blue, or green), so he adopted the pen name Ai Qing. Works Kuangye (1940; “Wildness”) Xiang taiyang (1940 “Toward the Sun”) Beifang (1942; “North”) Guilai de ge (1980; “Song of Returning”) Ai Qing quanji (“The Complete Works of Ai Qing”) in 1991. Works in French Le chant de la lumière «Guang de zange » , éditor, translator Ng Yok-Soon. Ed. les Cent fleurs, 1989 De la poésie ; Du poète / Ai Qing « Shilun » , translator Chantal Chen-Andro, Wang Zaiyuan, Ballouhey, Centre de recherche de l’Université de Paris VIII, 1982 ''Poèmes / Ai Ts’ing, éditor, translator Catherine Vignal. Publications orientalistes de France, 1979. Le récif : poèmes et fables / Ai Qing, éditor, translator Ng Yok-Soon. Ed. les Cent fleurs, 1987 Works in German Manfred und Shuxin Reinhardt (ed. and transl.): Auf der Waage der Zeit. Gedichte. Volk und Welt, Berlin 1988 (in Nachdichtungen von Annemarie Bostroem) Susanne Hornfeck (ed. and transl.): Schnee fällt auf Chinas Erde. Gedichte. Penguin Verlag, München 2021 Works in English Eugene Chen Eoyang (ed), Selected Poems of Ai Qing, Indiana University Press, 1982 Anthologies See also 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows - A memoir by Ai Weiwei which discusses Ai Qing References Further reading Chinese Writers on Writing featuring Ai Qing. Ed. Arthur Sze. (Trinity University Press, 2010). Portrait Ai Qing. A Portrait by Kong Kai Ming at Portrait Gallery of Chinese Writers (Hong Kong Baptist University Library).