In partnership with Paper Republic, Manchester City of Literature is publishing poetry in translation from four fantastic Chinese poets.

Paper Republic is a website dedicated to contemporary Chinese literature in translation. They host a blog, events listings and a database of authors, translators and publications.

Over the next few months, we will be publishing a different poem each month in both Chinese and English. This project marks the continuation of an ongoing cultural exchange and partnership between Manchester and Nanjing Cities of Literature.

 

 

Primitive Child, by Sun Dong 孙冬 (F)
translated by Josh Stenberg

every child
has once at the very beginning of life
tenderly
written down their own data
knowing absolutely nothing about completeness.   

their
wholly natural cochleas pupils lips
have never stopped growing
but have not grown enough to look familiar
their limbs like slender vines
outside of language
clambering over the shaggy zone 

the glacier opens the way, the pack of mice follows
as they walk along they lose
their home in the profane world
while their names
though constantly changing
are always perfectly sealed away
never falling into anyone’s
mouth.

 

原始的孩子

每个孩子
都曾在人生最初的日子
温暖地
写下自我的消息
对于完整一无所知

他们
浑然天成的耳蜗眼眸嘴唇
从未停止成长
但远非长成熟悉的样子
细蔓一样的肢体
在语言之外
蓬松的地带里攀援

冰川开路，鼠群跟随
他们一路走一路失去
尘世里的家
而他们的名字
虽然千变万化
但始终被完好地封存
没有落入任何人的
口中

 

About the Poet

Sun Dong is a Professor at Nanjing University of Finance and Economics. She holds a Ph.D. in English literature from Nanjing University. She has published a monograph titled Against Interpretation: On the Indeterminacy of Sam Shepard’s Theater; one non-fiction book, How to Be a Cat; and three poetry books, The Cruel Crow (with Dong Feng), The Broken Crow, and Writing Animals. She is also the editor of the Reciprocal Translation Project and the translator of three books: To Tell and to Show, Buried Child: Three Plays by Sam Shepard, and Bartleby, The Scrivener. Dong Sun’s poems have been translated into French, English, Turkish, and Romanian and published in various important literary magazines, newspapers, and online media outlets. She won Yangzi River Award of Poetry in Poetics in 2019 and was shortlisted for the Southern Poetry Award in 2024.

About the Translator 

Josh Stenberg teaches Chinese and diasporic literature and theatre at the University of Sydney, Australia. He is the author of Minority Stages: Sino-Indonesian Performance and Public Display (2019) and Liyuanxi: Chinese ‘Pear Garden’ Theatre (2022), and is also the translator of seven books of contemporary Chinese fiction and poetry.