Literary Works

These exceptional works by female Chinese authors reflect on topics from the impact of rapid urbanization on Chinese women to the trauma of sexual abuse victims Female authors were depressingly scarce through much of Chinese history (exceptions like the Song dynasty poet Li Qingzhao aside), with male voices dominating literature for centuries. Thankfully recent decades have seen a boom in works by women, with readers enthusiastically consuming writing from increasingly diverse perspectives. To celebrate the proliferation of female creators in genres from sci-fi to poetry, we‘ve compiled a list of five must-read works by exceptional Chinese female writers: Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise by Lin Yi-han  Just two months after the release of this book, Lin Yi-han’s debut novel, in 2017, the 26-year-old writer had hanged herself in her Taipei home. Lin suffered from serious depression since high school, and Fang Si-Chi’s First Love Paradise was adapted from her experience of being raped and abused by her Chinese tutor since the age of 16. In the book, Fang Si-Chi is assaulted by tutor Li Guohua, a...

Liu Yang On the west bank of the Xiangjiang River there’s a muddy building site  a giant oil painting spread out against the sky featuring all the artists’ favourite colours The blazing brush works relentlessly depicting drills, excavators, puddles of all sizes and builders busy as ants  the cellphone panoramic camera snaps all this – the dirty but orderly ant corps with safety helmets gathering here from snowy peaks  after crossing thousands of mountains and rivers Years ago, one of them crept from the grubby land and entered this building accidentally. The impression of mud  still there on the bottom of his trouser leg With the infinite patience of an ant he patrols each nook and cranny On this building site a lasting ode is composed  with the clanging strokes of a tool made out of steel 作者简介：刘羊，本名刘建海，湖南洞口人，上世纪70年代出生，毕业于湖南师范大学中文系。先后出版诗集《小小的幸福》《爱的长短句》两部，主编《二里半诗群30家》《二里半诗群作品集》等诗歌选本。 来源：中国诗歌网 编辑：王立倩

About the author：Tian Lingyun, a young Chinese poet, won the honor of "poet of the year" at the fourth thatched cottage poetry award. Face the storm alone, as humanity must do as I must do It’s inevitable. The rain will not stop Sooner or later you’ll be there cold and serene as the inevitable Mostly in life I have to face one face alone it is my own, between all the todays all the tomorrows, between calm and calmer – it’s sorrow it’s bright sorrow on the cliff So I am still alone by the imaginary candlelight, in the darkness of this corner I write this lonely poem not knowing its home 来源：中国诗歌网 编辑：王立倩

China has a long history of poetry writing and both traditional and modern poetry enjoy wide popularity for people all ages. Poetry can reflect Chinese people’s feelings about the world in a very precise and tangible way. Since 2019, the top Chinese poetry journal POETRY collaborated with Pathsharers Books from Washington D.C. to produce a Chinese-English bilingual online website named 21st Chinese Poetry, which presents the latest and widest Chinese poetry writing in English. Now all these poems are all available for free online and will be published in books in the future. CLRC Express selected a few of these poets, whose dwellings range from cities to the countryside and from bustling eastern towns to vast west deserts, who write, or ponder, or sing, or chant about the relations between history, future, humanity and nature from the deepest of their hearts. For further reading please visit: www.modernchinesepoetry.com Keyword: contemporary Chinese poetry, Pathsharer Books, 诗刊社，汉诗英译 Authors: Li Shaojun, Chilechuan, Ah Xin, Bai Ma, Chen Yundong Translators: Meifu Wang, Michael Soper, Peter...

Poetry: I AM THE ETERNAL SPIDER I am the eternal eight-legged spider my web stretches between the window and television screen ad infinitum between the hollow time of real and virtual deaths I can see everything from my center— a bud appeared on a branch a pop singer sang a familiar song on TV a woman gave birth to a son again a soldier exploded before the bud could fully open you first see the light then you hear the sound (the laws of nature never change unlike the laws of conscience) the light the sound the dust the shoes a mother screams and falls down the soil is an underground museum here is a soldier four centuries after death and here—only four hours after everything repeats identically . . . which means something must be wrong I am the eternal mourner in my four black veils my grandfather was killed by a Turk my father was killed by a German my son was killed by an Azeri and yesterday...

Photographed by Bar Gordon Tal Nitzán is an Israeli award winning poet, novelist and a major translator of Hispanic literature. Recipient of a dozen literary prizes, among them the Women Writers’ Prize, the Culture Minister's Prizes for Beginning Poets and for Debut Book, the Hebrew University and Bar-Ilan University prizes for poetry, and the Prime Minister's Prize for writers, Nitzán has published seven poetry collections, two novels, a short stories collection and six children books, and edited three poetry anthologies. Her poems are widely translated and anthologized, and thirteen selections of her poetry were published in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, German, Italian and Latvian. An ardent peace activist, Nitzán has edited the anthology ‘With an Iron pen’, Hebrew protest poetry against the Israeli occupation (subsequently published in English and French). Nitzán has translated to Hebrew circa 80 works of poetry and prose, mainly from Spanish, by authors such as Cervantes, Shakespeare, Neruda, García Lorca, Paz, García Márquez, Cortázar, Vargas Llosa, Bolaño, Toni Morrison, Edith Wharton, Ian McEwan, Aleksandar Hemon, Angela Carter. For her translations she won the Culture Minister Prize for translators (twice), the...

Kalina Izabela Zioła is a female Polish poet, literary critic and translator. She has published 14 collections of poems. The poems have been seen in many magazines, anthologies and yearbooks in Poland and abroad. She has translated 8 collections of Russian poems into Polish. Her works have also been translated into German, Serbian, Russian, Ukrainian, English, French, Greek and other languages. She has won many literary awards in Poland, Armenia, Macedonia and other countries. She specially sent a video congratulation to the Literary Network of Belt and Road, and recited three poems to express her gratitude to Chinese readers and translators. Video congratulation to the Literary Network of Belt and Road Chopin w Pekinie Chopin w Pekinie w złoto-jesiennym Pekinie siedziałam na lotnisku jeszcze nie całkiem przytomna po nazbyt krótkim śnie z głośników cicho płynęła dyskretna lekka muzyka wokół tłoczyli się ludzie a ja pisałam wiersz i nagle usłyszałam takt znajomej melodii słynny mazurek Chopina wplótł się w rozmyślań bieg poczułam się jak w domu jakby nagle przyjaciel na twardej...

The member of LNBR, the Morocco writer, Ms. AÏcha Bassry recommend a novel published in Arabic in 2018 by the publishing house (Al Dar Al Masriah Aloubnania) in Cairo (Egypt). The novel under the title La vie sans moi takes place between the People's Republic of China, Vietnam and Morocco. It is useful to translate this novel Especially since this novel is at the heart of the subject of the Belt and the Road and the mutual understanding of humans. The novel is based on historical events in the People's Republic of China and the protagonist of the novel is a Chinese woman. The novel tells about the events of Chinese society from an Arab point of view. This novel La vie sans moi won a very important award, which is the award for the best Arabic novel for the year 2018 at the Sharjah International Book Fair, United Arab Emirates. Here is a summary of the novel La vie sans moi: La vie sans moi is the story of...

Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin is an Irish poet and translator. She specially provided her acceptance speech after winning the 1573 International Poetry Award to the Literary Network of Belt and Road, and recited three of her poems. Acceptance Speech The poems she recited in her acceptance speech： In Gaelic: Cuirim mo dhóchas ar snámh i mbáidín teangan faoi mar a leagfá naíonán i gcliabhán … féachaint n’fheadaraís cá dtabharfaidh an sruth é, In English: I send my hope afloat in the small boat of a language as you might lay a baby in a basket cradle ….. watching, wondering where the stream will take it, The first poem: A Bridge Between Two CountiesThe long bridgeStretched between two countiesSo they could never agreeHow it should be keptStanding at all(In the mist in the darknessNeither bank could be seenWhen the three-day rainThe flood watersWere rising below).On that day I lookedWhere the couple walkedA woman a small childThe child well wrappedBecoming less visibleAs they dodged leftThen right, weavingBetween the barrels and the planksPlaced there...