Narrative Poem - Softcover

Yang Lian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1780373511 ISBN 13: 9781780373515

Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd, 2017

Synopsis

Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation
Dual language Chinese-English edition translated by Brian Holton

Before and since his enforced exile from 1989, Yang Lian has been one of the most innovative and influential poets in China. Widely hailed in America and Europe as a highly individual voice in world literature, he has been translated into many languages.

Narrative Poem, Yang Lian's most personal work to date, is built around a series of family photographs, the first of which was taken on the day when he was born, on 22 February 1955, and the last of which dates from the time he spent undergoing 're-education through labour' - and digging graves - during the mid-1970s.

The poetry ranges backward and forward in time, covering his childhood and youth, his first period of exile in New Zealand, and his subsequent adventures and travels in and around Europe and elsewhere.

In 'this unseen structure written by a ghost' Yang Lian weaves together lived experience with meditations on time, consciousness, history, language, memory and desire, in a search for new/old ways of speaking, thinking and living.

Narrative Poem, or Xushishi, was published in China in 2011, and this dual language edition presents the Chinese text alongside Brian Holton's masterly translation of a technically complex work of great beauty, The book also includes 'Family Tradition', Yang Lian's first ever preface to his own work, and 'Ghost Composer/Ghost Translator', a translator's afterword by Brian Holton.

'Trees that desire silence but cannot be silent will murmur at their lack of Samadhibala, the meditator's gentle strength of will. At the same time, the winds of Family Tradition will not cease blowing. I believe they never will.' - Yang Lian (in Family Tradition)

About this title

Review:

Repressive regimes tend to have little problem acknowledging poets' power to shape our opinions and our world. Some of those they exile settle in Britain. Yang Lian, a leading member of China's Tiananmen generation, has just published his autobiographical masterpiece Narrative Poem in translation... A kind of wild lyricism marks the work... a sense of the explosive urgency of writing itself. --Fiona Sampson, The i Paper

Yang Lian is one of the most ambitious poets writing in Chinese today - indeed, one of the most ambitious poets writing in any language... Narrative Poem represents a stunning achievement of both poet and translator, bringing the two together almost as one. --Lucas Klein, Translation and Literature

'Yang Lian distinguishes himself in representing the pain of life caught in between historic eras...a new version of an old issue for world literature as well as Chinese literature is proposed: how to continue writing, relying on individual rather than enforced communal inspiration.' - Allen Ginsberg

'It wouldn't surprise me if he became a future Nobel Laureate. His style is one of extraordinary grandeur and ambition...a monumental drive, a sensuous strength and intellectual clarity.' --David Morley, Stand

About the Author:

Yang Lian was one of the original Misty Poets who reacted against the strictures of the Cultural Revolution. Born in Switzerland, the son of a diplomat, he grew up in Beijing and began writing when he was sent to the countryside in the 1970s. On his return he joined the influential literary magazine Jintian (Today). His work was criticised in China in 1983 and formally banned in 1989 when he organised memorial services for the dead of Tiananmen while in New Zealand. He was a Chinese poet in exile from 1989 to 1995, finally settling in London in 1997. He is currently based in Berlin. Translations of his poetry include four collections with Bloodaxe, Where the Sea Stands Still (1999), a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation, Concentric Circles (2005), Lee Valley Poems (2009) and Narrative Poem (2017), also a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation, as well as his long poem Yi (Green Integer, USA, 2002) and Riding Pisces: Poems from Five Collections (Shearsman, 2008), a compilation of earlier work. He is co-editor with W.N. Herbert of Jade Ladder: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Bloodaxe Books, 2012), and was awarded the International Nonino Prize in 2012.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bloodaxe Books Ltd
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1780373511
• ISBN 13: 9781780373515
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272