Unreal City A Chinese Poet in Auckland: Selected Poetry and Prose of Yang Lian

Yang Lian is a celebrated Chinese poet and essayist widely known inside and outside China. After first coming to prominence in China as one of the leading writers of the new, modernist-style 'misty' poetry, he arrived in Auckland in 1989 and was there at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Unable to return to China Yang began in this strange, distant, foreign city the first stage of a life in exile. He became a New Zealand citizen and was based in Auckland for four traumatic years, which were extremely productive and made his name internationally. This book presents in a new English translation a selection of poems from this period as well as a number of essays, appearing in English for the first time, which meditate upon the experience of living in Auckland from a startling fresh perspective. These fascinating and moving texts are accompanied by notes and an introduction which establishes the pivotal role of Yang's New Zealand work in the transformation of one of China's leading poets into a major figure in world literature. Book jacket.

Yang Lian is the author of numerous collections of prose and poetry, including the epic poem "Nuorilang." Hilary Chung, PhD, is an associate dean of arts at the University of Auckland, a professor of Chinese, and a board member of the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Center. Jacob Edmond is a professor of comptemporary modern poetry at the University of Otago–Dunedin.