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Dao Bei

The sixth collection by China's foremost contemporary poet, Bei Dao, was greeted as perhaps his finest on its publication in America. The 49 poems were written in the USA, and have been translated into English by Eliot Weinberger (the distinguished essayist and translator of Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges) in collaboration with the historian Iona Man-Cheong and with Bei Dao himself. Saturated with startling, surreal imagery and oblique political references, this book shows the restless development in style which is the hallmark of the authentically innovative poet.

About the Author

Bei Dao (the pseudonym means "north island") was born in Beijing in 1949. Educated into the beliefs of Communist China, his subsequent disaffection found its voice in poetry, for which he has been nominated for the Nobel Prize on several occasions. Since 1989 he has lived first in Europe, then in the USA, and finally Hong Kong, where he teaches at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His poetry in English translation includes "The August Sleepwalker" (1988), "Old Snow" (1992), "Forms of Distance" (1994), "Landscape Over Zero" (1998) and "Unlock" (2006). He has also published several collections of essays, including "Midnight's Gate" (2007).

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