Author: Yu Xinqiao

Despite harsh censorship of his work and a hermit-like existence, Yu Xinqiao is one of the most influential, controversial contemporary Chinese poets. Born January 1968 in Fujian Province, he is a self-educated scholar who started lecturing on literature, art, and constitutional democracy at the age of 20. From 1989 onward he has promoted the movement for a cultural renaissance in China, and on this basis attempted to found a new political party, for which he spent eight years in prison. His poems have been set to music and quoted in films. English translations of his writings appear in One Hundred Years of Chinese Literary Classics, An Anthology of Modern Chinese Literature and The Last Lyric.