Product Description

Shi Zhi has been a major force in Chinese poetry since 1968, when several of his poems were circulated as secret handwritten manuscripts in the midst of Chinas Cultural Revolution. He gave voice to the aspirations of dispirited youth, and although once relegated to obscurity, he is today celebrated as one of Chinas most important cultural influences, having spawned the modern Chinese poetry revolution of the 1980s. This bilingual collection of Shi Zhis most significant poems, featuring an afterword by the poet himself, is the first book-length publication of his work in English.Born as Guo Lusheng in 1948, at the height of the Chinese Civil War, Shi Zhi joined the Peoples Liberation Army at the age of twenty-three. Discharged early, he entered into a period of severe depression and spent much of the next three decades living in mental hospitals under harsh conditions. Taking the pen name of Shi Zhi, meaning index finger, to evoke the image of people pointing at his back, he continued to write poetry through these tumultuous years, chronicling his journey from the heights of fame to the depths of institutionalism and ultimately to a final redemptive return to society in 2005. The voice of this besieged poet, burdened with exile and illness, captured the spirit of his generation and now inspires young readers.By presenting Shi Zhis poems in chronological order,