The Chinese Writers Association (CWA) Thursday held a symposium commemorating the centennial anniversary of the late poet Ai Qing.Ai, the nation's poetry master, was a prominent representative of China's realism poetry and a poet of international fame, according to a CWA statement.

He made his debut into the literary world in the early 1930s and became a prolific writer with great influence, it said. Ai's greatest poems include Da Yan River-My Wet-nurse and Ode to Light.

His work has been translated into more than 30 languages and published worldwide. Ai has also received highest literature honors in France and Portugal.

The Zhejiang native was born in 1910. He went to study in France in 1932, and when he returned to China became editor-in-chief of major Chinese literature magazines.

Ai died in May 1996 in Beijing. Tie Ning, head of the CWA, said Ai's work combined his destiny with the hardship and struggle of the nation and the people and conveyed the people's voice and the trend of the times.

She asked those working in the literary world to cherish the wealth left by writers of older generations and learn from them writing for the people and among the people, inheriting the tradition of continuous innovating and exploring. The symposium, held in the Great Hall of the People in downtown Beijing, was attended by Ai's wife Gao Ying, poets, scholars and celebrities of the literary world.