Event Details
Wed, October 17, 2018
18:00 – 19:30
VILLA SASSETTI
Villa La Pietra
Via Bolognese, 120
50139 Firenze, Italia
Join us for an informal conversation with Yang Lian, Poet. Moderated by Elisa Biagini, NYU Florence.
Featured Biographies
Yang Lian
POET
Chinese poet Yang Lian was born in Switzerland, grew up in China, and now lives in London. He has published 13 volumes of poetry, 2 volumes of prose and 1 volume of essays. His work has been translated into more than 25 languages. His representative works include YI, Where the Sea Stands Still, Concentric Circles, Riding Pisces: Poems from Five Collections, and Lee Valley Poems. Lian´s works have been described by reviewers as “like MacDiarmid meets Rilke with Samurai sword drawn!´”, “one of the most representative voices of Chinese literature” and “one of the great world poets of our era´”. His latest publication in English was Jade Ladder, an anthology of contemporary Chinese Poetry, which he edited along with W.N. Herbert and others. Among his many prizes, Yang Lian was awarded the 2018 Premio Internazionale NordSud (the NordSud International Prize) for Literature in Italy. In 2017, Narrative Poem, Yang Lian’s autobiographical book-length poem was selected as a recommended translation by the UK´s Poetry Book Society and won the English PEN Award. Lian won the Pacific International Poetry Prize in Taiwan in 2016, four poetry prizes in China in 2015, the International Capri Prize in 2014, the Tian Duo (Heavenly Bell) prize for long poem in 2013 and the Nonino International Literature Prize in 2012 (the prize jury was presided by V.S. Naipaul). He was elected a board member of PEN International in 2008 and 2011. Lian is a guest professor in 4 Chinese universities and was invited to become a member of The Norwegian Academy for Literature and Freedom of Expression in 2013. He was a DAAD fellow in Berlin in 1991-1992 and a fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin in 2012-2013.
Elisa Biagini
POET AND NYU FLORENCE LECTURER
Elisa Biagini lives in Florence, Ita, after having taught and studied in the U.S. for several years. Her poems have been published in several Italian and American reviews and anthologies. She has published 7 poetry collections, some bilingual, such as L’Ospite (Einaudi, 2004), Fiato. parole per musica (Edizioni dif 2006), Nel Bosco (Einaudi, 2007) and Da una crepa (Einaudi, 2014). A selection of her poems was published in New York in 2013 The Guest in the Wood (Chelsea Editions, 2014, Best Translated Book Award). Her poems have been translated into English, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Croatian, Japanese, Slovak, Russian, Serbian, Arabic and Chinese and she has been invited to important poetry festivals such as: “Stanza-Scotland’s International Poetry Festival”, St. Andrews, Scotland; “Dubai International Poetry Festival”, UAE; “poesiefestivalberlin”, Berlin; International Writers Workshop, Hong Kong (residency); “Struga poetry evenings”, Struga, Macedonia; “Poetry Parnassus” London; “internationales literaturfestival berlin”, Berlin and she has been a fellow at “Residences Internationales pour ecrivains au Chateau de Lavigny”, Suisse; “International Writers Workshop”, Hong Kong; “Fundacion Valparaiso”, Espana; “Fondazione Bogliasco-Centro studi ligure per le arti e le lettere”, Italy; “Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers”, Scotland. She has translated several contemporary American poets for reviews, anthologies and complete collections (Nuovi Poeti Americani, Einaudi, 2006). Finally, she teaches creative writing, poetry, travel writing, literature and art history in American Universities in Italy and abroad.