Yang Lian, a Chinese poet, was born in Switzerland, grew up in China and now lives in London. He has published 15 volumes of poetry, two volumes of prose, one autobiographical book, and many essays, as well as translated George Orwell's fictions into Chinese. His work has been translated into more 30 languages, and his representative works include YI, Where the Sea Stands Still; Concentric Circles; Riding Pisces: Poems from Five Collections; Lee Valley Poems, Narrative Poem, and Anniversary Snow. His works have been reviewed 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". He was also one of the main editors of Jade Ladder: An Anthology of Contemporary Chinese Poetry in English Translation (Bloodaxe Books, 2012) and The Third Shore: An Anthology of Chinese & English-Language Poets in Mutual Translation (Shearsman Books, 2013). Among other prizes, Yang Lian was awarded the 2019 Premio Sulmona in Italy; the 2018 Premio Internazionale NordSud (2018 NordSud International Prize) for Literature, Italy; and the 2018 Janus Pannonius International Poetry Grand in Hungary, 2017. Narrative Poem, Yang Lian’s autographical book-length poem, was selected as a recommended translation by the Poetry Book Society in UK, as well as winning the English PEN Award.
Lian won the Pacific International Poetry Prize in Taiwan in 2016, four poetry prizes in China during 2015, the International Capri Prize 2014, “Tian Duo” (Heavenly Bell) prize for the long poem 2013 and the Nonino International Literature Prize 2012 (the jury of the prize presided over by VS Naipaul). He has been elected a board member of PEN International in 2008 and 2011. Yang Lian has been a distingushed Professor at Shantou University in China since 2014, and has been invited to become a member of the Norwegian Academy for Literature and Freedom of Expression in 2013. He was a DAAD fellow in Berlin 1991–1992 and a fellow of Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin 2012–2013.