The Weight of Writing

Ma Jian is the author of several critically acclaimed novels. His novella Stick Out Your Tongue (1987) was banned in China for constituting a “typical example of liberalisation”. He continued to write, publishing Bardo, Nine Crossroads, The Noodle Maker. Relocating in Germany in 1997, he wrote Beijing Coma. Since 1999 Ma Jian had been living in London, where he wrote Red Dust (2001), The Dark Road (2012), and China Dream (2018). Ma Jian has been the recipient of several literary awards. The Nobel Literature laureate Gao Xingjian called him "one of the most important and courageous voices in Chinese literature".

Mei’er is the director of the Twelve Behind International Festival and served as the President of the Journal Taiwan Chiu Shui Poetry Quarterly. She has published poetry collections including Weight of a Sponge, Twelve Behind etc. Through the years of her writing career, she has been awarded the 4th Long Poems Prize, the 57th Chinese Taiwan Literary Medal, the Gold Medal award for poetry of the 4th Eurasian Literary festival, the 1st Epoch Poetry Prize, the Poets Prize of the American Academy of Culture and Arts, and more. Her poems have been translated in over ten languages, including English, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, German, Mongolian, Hungarian, Arabic, Persian.

Yang Lian is a worldwide renowned poet. He was born in Switzerland, grew up in China and now lives between Berlin and London. He has published 15 volumes of poetry, 2 volumes of prose, and many essays. His most representative works include A Tower Built Downward (2023), Anniversary Snow (2019), Narrative Poem (2016), Lee Valley Poems (2009), Riding Pisces (2008), Concentric Circles (2005), Yi (2002), and Where the Sea Stands Still (1999). Among the many awards, Yang Lian won The Zbigniew Herbert International Honorary Award (2024), the English PEN Award (2017 and 2024), the inaugural Sarah McGuire Prize for Poetry in Translation (2021), Premio Sulmona (2019), NordSud International Prize for Literature (2018), the Janus Pannonius International Poetry Grand Prize (2018), Pacific International Poetry Prize (2016), Capri International Poetry Prize (2014), and International Nonino Prize (2012). The Scotsman defined his work “like MacDiarmid meets Rilke with Samurai sword drawn!”

YoYo is an accomplished writer and painter. Born in Western China, she worked as an art editor in Chinese Theatre Publishing House before leaving China in 1988. She travelled around the world and she’s now living with her husband Yang Lian in Berlin and London. She has published nine books of fiction. Two of her novels have been translated into English: Ghost Tide (2005), and One Man’s Decision to Become a Tree (2023). The Australian writer Nicolas Jose reviewed some of her work, calling it “true literature”. Guest of honour in many literary and arts foundations, such as Berlin DAAD, Yaddo, and Schloss Solitude, she pursues her profession as a free artist.

Translators

Brian Holton is an award-winning translator, poet, and musician. He is the only living poet who translates from Chinese into Scots. He taught in the UK and Hong Kong and has assiduously translated Yang Lian’s work into English and Scots.

Callisto is a SOAS graduate of BA Chinese program. She lived in China and engaged in a career of over 15 years as a translator, mainly in literature and the arts. To date she holds a PhD in Chinese philosophy in the area of metaphor in ancient Chinese texts. She is the translator of YoYo’s novel One Man’s Decision to Become a Tree.

Flora Drew studied Chinese at SOAS. She is the translator of Ma Jian’s Red Dust, The Noodle Maker, Stick Out Your Tongue, Beijing Coma, The Dark Road and China Dream.

Chair

• Dr Cosima Bruno

This event is free to attend, but registration is required. Please note that seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

This event is taking place on campus and will not be recorded or live-streamed.

• Email: sci@soas.ac.uk