Romain Rolland/Jean Christophe in China

Need to be in office early and have been up too late tinkering with mixing software, but I am in the middle of trying to crack this mystery.
That is, not really any mystery, but the seeming centrality of Romain Rolland's Jean Christophe to a generation of Chinese intellectuals that came to age in the 60s and 70s.
Above,  RR chilling with Gandhi. Word.