Carcanet Press - Old Snow

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The three sections of Bei Dao’s moving book of poems – ‘Berlin’, ‘Oslo’ and ‘Stockholm’ – are poignant reminders of the restless and rootless life of the exile. All the poems in this bilingual collection were written after Tiananmen Square (4 June 1989), when Bei Dao was away from his Peking home, to which he has so far been unable to return. His poems refer back to this watershed both overtly and in dense images of loss and betrayal. Old Snow confirms Bei Dao’s standing as China’s leading poet.

Bei Dao

Bei Dao, pen name of Zhao Zhenkai, was born in Beijing in 1949. Hailed as "the soul of post-Mao poetry" (Yunte Huang) and praised for his "intense lyricism" (Pankaj Mishra), Bei Dao is one of contemporary China's most distinguished poets and the cofounder of the landmark underground literary journal Jintian ... read more

Chen Maiping

Chen Maiping, born in 1952 in Jiangsu, is a Chinese writer and poet, known by the pen name Wan Zhi. He spent the Cultural Revolution years in Inner Mongolia. Returning to Peking, he contributed short stories to Today . He left China for studies in Oslo in 1986, and since ... read more

Bonnie S. McDougall

Bonnie S. McDougall is Visiting Professor in the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics at the City University of Hong Kong. She has previously taught at the Universities of Edinburgh, Sydney, Harvard and Oslo. From 2006-8 she was Research Professor in Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. During the ... read more

Praise for Bei Dao 'Dao's first book-length poem transports us through the years, countries and memories that followed his 1989 expulsion from China (his poems were recited by students in Tiananmen Square). The restlessness of these 34 cantos, which dart between personal experience and historical moment, creates a vital expression of the exile's condition.'

Maria Crawford, Financial Times
'This beautiful, harrowing, frequently astonishing and unsettling long poem, eleven years in the making, succeeding and deepening a prodigious body of accomplished earlier work, is ample evidence that the Nobel Prize for Bei Dao is surely somewhat overdue.'

Stuart Walton, Hong Kong Review of Books
'A lyrical masterpiece.'

Carol Muske-Dukes
'Bei Dao is among the strongest poetic impressions of my lifetime. To me, his poems are the work of a genius, a genius of juxtaposing, of simplicity, of acceleration, of tunneling through emblem and image.'

Michael Hofmann
'As with stereograms (magic-eye art), if we look at them long enough, a three-dimensional view of Bei Dao's itinerant life in exile comes in and out of focus. From Beijing to West Berlin, Copenhagen to Hong Kong, the narrative thrust of this collection zigzags through his lifetime, while the 34 cantos themselves (in Jeffrey Yang's propulsive translation) are a nebula of worldly experience.'
Jack Hargreaves, China Book Review
'The language of Bei Dao's memoir, seamlessly translated by fellow poet Yang, is elegantly simple and guilelessly accessible....Winter white cabbage, vinyl records, pet rabbits, banned books, and first and last 'I love yous' provide intimate glimpses that 'open up' to reveal extraordinary, immediate testimony of challenges survived in a life intensely lived.'
Booklist of City Gate, Open Up (US edition, published by New Directions) 'This is a nuanced account of China in the era of the Cultural Revolution, seen through one young man's eyes. Since that young man became a poet, it is also beautifully textured, full of the sounds, sights, and scents of a Beijing that is no more.'
Publishers Weekly of City Gate, Open Up (US edition, published by New Directions)

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Old Snow Bei Dao Translated by Chen Maiping and Bonnie S. McDougall Imprint: Anvil Press Poetry Publisher: Carcanet Press Available as: Paperback (96 pages) (Pub. Jan 1989) 9780856462429 Out of Stock Description Author Reviews The three sections of Bei Dao’s moving book of poems – ‘Berlin’, ‘Oslo’ and ‘Stockholm’ – are poignant reminders of the restless and rootless life of the exile. All the poems in this bilingual collection were written after Tiananmen Square (4 June 1989), when Bei Dao was away from his Peking home, to which he has so far been unable to return. His poems refer back to this watershed both overtly and in dense images of loss and betrayal. Old Snow confirms Bei Dao’s standing as China’s leading poet. Bei Dao Bei Dao, pen name of Zhao Zhenkai, was born in Beijing in 1949. Hailed as "the soul of post-Mao poetry" (Yunte Huang) and praised for his "intense lyricism" (Pankaj Mishra), Bei Dao is one of contemporary China's most distinguished poets and the cofounder of the landmark underground literary journal Jintian ... read more Chen Maiping Chen Maiping, born in 1952 in Jiangsu, is a Chinese writer and poet, known by the pen name Wan Zhi. He spent the Cultural Revolution years in Inner Mongolia. Returning to Peking, he contributed short stories to Today . He left China for studies in Oslo in 1986, and since ... read more Bonnie S. McDougall Bonnie S. McDougall is Visiting Professor in the Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics at the City University of Hong Kong. She has previously taught at the Universities of Edinburgh, Sydney, Harvard and Oslo. From 2006-8 she was Research Professor in Translation at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. During the ... read more Praise for Bei Dao 'Dao's first book-length poem transports us through the years, countries and memories that followed his 1989 expulsion from China (his poems were recited by students in Tiananmen Square). The restlessness of these 34 cantos, which dart between personal experience and historical moment, creates a vital expression of the exile's condition.' Maria Crawford, Financial Times 'This beautiful, harrowing, frequently astonishing and unsettling long poem, eleven years in the making, succeeding and deepening a prodigious body of accomplished earlier work, is ample evidence that the Nobel Prize for Bei Dao is surely somewhat overdue.' Stuart Walton, Hong Kong Review of Books 'A lyrical masterpiece.' Carol Muske-Dukes 'Bei Dao is among the strongest poetic impressions of my lifetime. To me, his poems are the work of a genius, a genius of juxtaposing, of simplicity, of acceleration, of tunneling through emblem and image.' Michael Hofmann 'As with stereograms (magic-eye art), if we look at them long enough, a three-dimensional view of Bei Dao's itinerant life in exile comes in and out of focus. From Beijing to West Berlin, Copenhagen to Hong Kong, the narrative thrust of this collection zigzags through his lifetime, while the 34 cantos themselves (in Jeffrey Yang's propulsive translation) are a nebula of worldly experience.' Jack Hargreaves, China Book Review 'The language of Bei Dao's memoir, seamlessly translated by fellow poet Yang, is elegantly simple and guilelessly accessible....Winter white cabbage, vinyl records, pet rabbits, banned books, and first and last 'I love yous' provide intimate glimpses that 'open up' to reveal extraordinary, immediate testimony of challenges survived in a life intensely lived.' Booklist of City Gate, Open Up (US edition, published by New Directions) 'This is a nuanced account of China in the era of the Cultural Revolution, seen through one young man's eyes. Since that young man became a poet, it is also beautifully textured, full of the sounds, sights, and scents of a Beijing that is no more.' Publishers Weekly of City Gate, Open Up (US edition, published by New Directions)	Share this... Quick Links Carcanet Poetry Carcanet Classics Carcanet Fiction Carcanet Film Lives and Letters PN Review Video Carcanet Celebrates 50 Years! The Carcanet Blog We've Moved! read more Books of the Year read more One Little Room: Peter McDonald read more Collected Poems: Mimi Khalvati read more Invisible Dog: Fabio Morbito, translated by Richard Gwyn read more Dante's Purgatorio: Philip Terry read more
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Old Snow

Bei Dao

Translated by Chen Maiping and Bonnie S. McDougall