Bei Dao
(b. 1949)

Bei Dao is the pseudonym, or pen name, of Zhao Zhenkai. His pen name was given to him by friends to avoid harassment by police when he was publishing an unofficial magazine in China.

Born in Beijing, Dao was well educated in China. In the 1960s, he left school and joined the Red Guard, a paramilitary group that existed during the Cultural Revolution. In 1969, as a form of "re-education," he was sent to the countryside to work as a construction worker. While in the countryside, he became discontented with the Chinese political system and lost his enthusiasm for the revolution. During this time, he studied, read, and began expressing his views in poems and stories. In 1978, he cofounded an unofficial literary magazine Jintian (Today) that was published until 1980 when it was banned by the authorities.

Over the years, Dao has become a leading writer in the pro-democracy movement. During the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, when students were killed by government forces during a protest for democracy, Dao was in Berlin for a literary conference. At that time, Dao was barred from returning to China, and his wife and daughter were not allowed to leave the country. The couple was separated for almost six years. Dao traveled through several different countries in Europe and eventually moved to the United States. In 1995, he reunited with his family. They now live in northern California.

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