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 bilingual 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). Poetry Book Society Recommended
Translation.
