The Third Shore

by Yang Lian (Editor), W N Herbert (Editor)

Overview

Walter Benjamin called translation "The Third Language", because a translation is neither the same as the original, nor the same as the normal foreign-language of other texts, for it is something unique, something set apart from either, just as bronze forged from copper and tin overcomes the brittleness of copper and the softness of tin to become both hard and pliable, as if it has become a new element. In this volume, Chinese poets and English-language poets come together to translate each other's work. The Chinese poets involved are: Jiang Tao, Leng Shuang, Tang Xiaodu, Wang Xaoni, Xiao Kaiyu, Xi Chuan, Yan Li, Yang Lian, Yang Xiaobin, Yu Jian, Zang Di, Zhai Yongming, Zhang Wei and Zhou Zan, while the Western representatives are: Nicholas Admussen, Tony Barnstone, Polly Clark, Jennifer Crawford, Antony Dunn, W.N. Herbert, Sean O'Brien, Pascale Petit, Fiona Sampson, Arthur Sze, George Szirtes and Joshua Weiner.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781848613096
Publisher:	Shearsman Books
Publication date:	09/28/2013
Edition description:	Int'l ed.
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.53(d)

About the Author

Yang Lian was born in Switzerland in 1955, and grew up in Beijing. He began writing when he was sent to the countryside in the 1970s. On his return to Beijing he became one of the founders of the 'Misty' school of contemporary Chinese poetry. Among other things, Yang Lian is known for his poem sequences and long poems which display a profound understanding of, and creative links with, Classical Chinese poetry. His poems became well-known and influential inside and outside of China in the 1980s, especially when his sequence 'Norilang' was criticized by the Chinese government during the 'Anti-Spiritual Pollution' movement.Yang Lian was invited to visit Australia and New Zealand in 1988 and became a poet in exile after the Tiananmen massacre. Since that time, he has continued to write and speak out as a highly individual voice in world literature, politics and culture. Yang Lian has published twelve collections of poems, two collections of prose and many essays (selected into several selections) in Chinese. His work has also been translated into more than thirty languages, including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Arabic, Central and Eastern European languages.