Lee Valley Poems, By Yang Lian
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For the Chinese dissident poet Yang Lian, in transit since the repressions of 1989, Stoke Newington starts to become a truly "local" place "the fourth year you see the very last apple on the branch".
This hauntingly beautiful collection, with its Chinese classical sensibility wedded to modernist methods, is a remarkable addition to London's literature of exile.
The bilingual edition sets Chinese originals opposite versions crafted by the author with fellow-poets such as Pascale Petit, WN Herbert and Fiona Sampson. At the confluence of Far East and East End, as mess and mystery meet, dive into the waters of a unique mind.
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