The JINTIAN [今天] series of contemporary literature features new and innovative writing from mainland China and abroad. Titles in the series are edited by Bei Dao, Lydia H. Liu, and Christopher Mattiso
The JINTIAN [今天] series of contemporary literature features new and innovative writing from mainland China and abroad. Titles in the series are edited by Bei Dao, Lydia H. Liu, and Christopher Mattison. A collaborative venture between Zephyr Press, the Jintian Literary Foundation, and The Chinese University Press, each bilingual title highlights the ever-changing literary culture of China while simultaneously expanding the English language with a wave of new voices in translation. “This collection of poems is an amazing clash of classical Chinese poetry, the New York School, postmodern cinema, and the inside of a singular heart-head. ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got no evidence here that can harm you,’ Ya Shi says, and it’s true, I’m not harmed by his tentative relationship with nature in his experimental sonnets, I’m not harmed by his dark humor or his fragmentary leaps into surprise. I’m too invested. Ya Shi deserves the ‘cardiac bang bang of literary fame’ he fears, and to Nick Admussen
Ya Shi, an “outsider” poet, who teaches math and lives 1,000 miles from the Beijing literary scene, is celebrated among lovers of Chinese poetry from the conservative to the avant-garde. This bilingua
