The difficult situation and the questioning of Contemporary Chinese Literature
The difficult situation and the questioning of Contemporary Chinese Literature
Poet YANG Lian and his wife, writer and painter LIU You-Hong, explore issues and challenges contemporary Chinese literature faces today.
The difficult situation and the questioning of Contemporary Chinese Literature Contemporary Chinese literature has experienced several reincarnations — the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, and globalization — in which nightmares and inspiration have mutually fueled one another; as long as writers maintain the energy to question, the resources for thought and literature remain inexhaustible. In my case, these decades of poetry writing have constructed concentric circles of "Thinking Poetry", all echoing—amidst endless variations—a singular core theme: there is no heaven, yet one must resist every hell.
Poem recitation (Chinese version by Yang Lian and English version by Professor Joshua Weiner)
YANG Lian bio
Yang Lian, a Chinese poet, was born in Switzerland, grew up in China, and now lives in London and Berlin. He published 15 volumes of poetry, 2 volumes of prose, and
many essays. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages, and his representative works include YI, Where the Sea Stands Still, Concentric Circles,
Riding Pisces, Lee Valley Poems, Narrative Poem, Anniversary Snow, A Tower Built Downwards, Long Day Looking Back, etc. His works have been reviewed as "like
MacDiarmid meets Rilke with Samurai sword drawn" and "one of the most representative voices of Chinese literature".
Yang Lian has won many awards; the most recent ones among them were the Lerici Pea International Lifetime Achievement Award 2026; the Zbigniew Herbert
International Literary Award (Poland) 2024; A Tower Built Downwards was shortlisted for the inaugural PEN Heaney Prize; it also won the English PEN Award
2023;2021…etc. Yang Lian was elected a board member of PEN International in 2008 and 2011. Among his fellowships, Yang Lian was a fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2012 – 2013. 2013, he was invited to become a member of the Norwegian Academy for Literature and Freedom of Expression. He is one of two chief editors of Survivors Poetry Magazine.
YoYo’s Bio
YoYo is a pen name of You-Hong Liu. She is a novelist who has published thirteen books, including two in English translation. She is also an artist who has held exhibitions internationally and won the special prize for foreign artists of the 46th International Exhibition in Sulmona, Italy.
Sponsored by the Chinese Program and SLLC