Duo Duo

The poet Duo Duo was born in Beijing in 1951 as Li Shizheng (栗世征). He started writing poetry in the early 1970s during the Cultural Revolution and has lived and wrote abroad since 1989 in the UK, Canada, USA and the Netherlands.

As contemporary Chinese writer he is considered the most famous frontrunner and promotor of the celebrated Misty poets, known in modern literature to practice ‘obscure poetry’ in reaction to the Cultural Revolution of the 1970s.

Duo Duo’s early poems have been described as “small and elliptical”, including many influences of western writers such as Sylvia Plath, Marina Tsvetaeva and Charles Baudelaire. He was a follower of Chinese poet Bei Dau for many years, but critics agree that his style is quite different to that of the old master.

During 2004 he returned to China where he is now a professor at the Hainan University. Duo Duo is also the 21st laureate of the Neustadt Prize.

Some published works, in English:
* Looking Out from Death: From the Cultural Revolution to Tiannanmen Square, 1989
* The Boy Who Catches Wasps, 2002, Zephyr Press
* Snow Plain, 2010

INTERVIEW

Poetry is not only about understanding from the Prague Writers Festival.