Bei Dao, pen name of Zhao Zhenkai, was born in Beijing in 1949. Hailed as “the soul of post-Mao poetry” (Yunte Huang) and praised for his “intense lyricism” (Pankaj Mishra), Bei Dao is one of contemporary China’s most distinguished poets and the cofounder of the landmark underground literary journal Jintian (Today). His poetry has been translated into over thirty languages and he has received numerous international awards for his work, including the Cikada Prize in Sweden, the Golden Wreath Award in North Macedonia, the Argana Poetry Prize in Morocco, the Jeanette Schocken Literary Prize in Germany, the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award in the United States, and the 2nd Yakamochi Medal in Japan. New Directions has published ten of his books, most recently the poetry collection Sidetracks and the autobiography City Gate, Open Up, both translated by Jeffrey Yang. Since 2007, Bei Dao has been a Professor of Humanities at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and divides his time between Hong Kong and Beijing.
