Special Poetry Reading
Yang Lian
Yang Lian has been writing since the 1970s and first came to the attention of the Chinese reading public in the 1980s, when one of his poems became the target of political criticism for its “spiritually corrupting” potential. Abroad at the time of the Tiananmen repression in 1989, he has since made his career in exile, chiefly in New Zealand and England. His books published in English include Non-Person Singular (1995), Concentric Circles (2005), and Unreal City (2006). A selection of poems from his career was published in 2008 as Riding Pisces. His work has been translated into German, Danish, Italian, and French, among other languages. Yang Lian will be reading from his recent work and commenting on the practice of literary cosmopolitanism.