Chinese poet Bei Dao (Zhao Zhenkai) to read at Kenyon College

GAMBIER, Ohio (September 3, 2004) Chinese poet Bei Dao will read from his work at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, September 23, in Kenyon College's Higley Auditorium.

Born Zhao Zhenkai in Beijing, People's Republic of China, Bei Dao took his pseudonym at the suggestion of a friend. It means "North Island," a reference to his provenance from Northern China and his typical solitude.

Dao is one of the foremost poets of the "Misty School," a group derided by the Communist literary establishment for their use of obscure language and their departure from socialist realism. His poems served as a source of inspiration during the April Fifth Democracy Movement of 1976. He has been in exile from China since the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989.

Bei Dao's work is translated into twenty-five languages, including five volumes of poetry in English.

His awards and honors include the Aragana Poetry Prize from the International Festival of Poetry in Casablanca, Morocco; the Tucholsky Prize from Swedish PEN; and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He was a Stanford Presidential lecturer and has taught at the University of California, at Davis. He is the Mackey Poet in Residence at Beloit College, where he also served as the Lois Wilson Mackey '45 Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing.

Sponsored by Kenyon's Asian Studies Program, the Kenyon Review, and the Richard L. Thomas Professorship in Creative Writing, Bei Dao's reading is free and open to the public.