Words as Grain

A leading poet from the Cultural Revolution to the present day, Duo Duo is one of China's most influential contemporary writers. He began writing in the 1970s. His poetic vision matured in Beijing in the 1980s and during his exile in the 1990s following the Tiananmen Square Massacre, finally bursting into full bloom with his return home in 2004.

Responding to the Chinese political landscape with his investigations into language and an idiosyncratic take on the Zen Buddhist tradition, Duo Duo writes poetry for poets. In exacting translations by award-winning translator Lucas Klein, this career-spanning anthology features Duo Duo's entire oeuvre since his return to China, as well as a selection of his early poems, presenting nearly five decades of work from "a resolute seer of some of the most basic, universal human values" (Mai Mang, Neustadt Prize Ceremony).