Duo Duo at the Prague Writers’ Festival

Duo Duo by Petr MachanThe Chinese poet Duo Duo 多多 attended the Prague Writers’ Festival last month, and they have put up a page of his interviews, readings, prose as translated by John Crespi, and poetry translated by Mai Mang 麦芒. Also included is Duo Duo’s acceptance speech for 2010’s Neustadt Prize, also translated by Mai Mang as “This Is the Reason We Persevere,” which seems to voice the starting point of China’s Obscure Poetry 朦胧诗 poetics:

Even as I speak, remnants of the 1970s still resound, and contain every echo of the reshaping of one’s character. One country, one voice–the poet expels himself from all that. Thus begins writing, thus begins exile. A position approaches me on its own. I am only one man; I establish myself on that. I am only a man.