John Yau John Yau was born in New York in 1950, where he still lives today. He is the son of Chinese-American parents who emigrated to the USA shortly before his birth. As far as art is concerned – and Yau is not only an author but also teaches art history at the Rutgers University in New Jersey – he found the poetry of the 1960s particularly appealing during his years as a student. Yau is one of the most important poets of his generation, and his work can best be classified as language poetry. His poems ... more
Müesser Yeniay Müesser Yeniay (born in 1984 in Izmir, Turkey) studied English Language and Literature at the Ege University. Yeniay works as a poet, writer and translator. Her work has been translated into several languages including Hungarian, English, Vietnamese, Persian and Hindi. She edits the literary magazine Şiirden and is a member of the Turkish PEN. Yeniay’s poems have been awarded many prizes and cover subjects from love poetry to feminism to a present-day political survey of Turkey. She sees the poe ... more Müesser Yeniay c_Metin Cengiz
Liao Yiwu Liao Yiwu (also known as Lao Wei), born in 1958, was well known as a poet in China in the 1980s before deliberately deciding for a life as an underground poet and dissident. From 1990 to 1994 he was imprisoned for publishing his long poem Massacre, in which he critices the events on Tian'anmen Square in 1989. Despite horrific abuse in prison he continued to write. After his release, Liao Yiwu was banned from publishing, and finally fled China and went into exile. He now lives in Berlin as a writ ... more Liao Yiwu (c) Ali Ghandtschi
Ekaterina Yossifova (de) Ekaterina Yossifova (1941, Kjustendil / Bulgarien) ist Dichterin, Lehrerin, Journalistin, Dramaturgin, Dozentin, Redakteurin, Kritikerin sowie Übersetzerin aus den slawischen Sprachen und dem Ungarischen. Sie studierte russische Philologie an der Universität von Sofia. Die Poesie ist charakterisiert von sanfter Vorbestimmtheit und aufwühlender Härte. Es handelt sich um eine Lyrik mit leisen Tönen, „sehr dem Wort und dem Individuum zugewandt, ohne schräge Metaphern“ (Tzveta Sofronieva). In l ... more
Hsia Yu Hsia Yu (born 1956, Taiwan) studied film and theatre at the National Taiwan Academy of the Arts. Following long stays abroad in France and the USA, she now lives in Taipei. She has published numerous essays and plays. Four volumes of her poetry have appeared in Taiwan to date. Since her first publications at the beginning of the Eighties, Hsia Yu has been seen as one of the most important young voices in Taiwanese literature. Publications (selection): Beiwanglu/Memoranda (1983), Ventriloquy (199 ... more
Hsia Yü (de) Hsia Yü (*1956, Taiwan) studierte an der National Taiwan Academy of the Arts Film- und Theaterwissenschaften. Seit ihren ersten Veröffentlichungen Anfang der achtziger Jahre gilt Hsia Yü als eine der wichtigsten Stimmen der taiwanesischen Literatur. Sie hat bisher fünf Gedichtbände veröffentlicht, zudem zahlreiche Essays und Theaterstücke. Nach Auslandsaufenthalten in Frankreich lebt sie heute in Taipeh. ... more
Lü Yue Lü Yue (pseudonym of Lü Yalan) born in 1972, lives in Beijing and is Editor-in-Chief of the Beijing News. She gained her doctorate in Literature in 2014. In her poems she combines journalistic materials with poetic elements. She is notable for her clear and courageous language in which she draws attention to the absurdity of the ‘current events’ being talked about – a subtle form of criticism, also of traditional social power structures. In her texts she introduces a feminist perspective which i ... more Lü Yue (c) privat
Natan Zach Natan Zach was born in Berlin in 1930 and is one of Israel’s most important contemporary poets. His poetry is full of allusions and ambiguities and characterised by understatement and ironic fractures. Many of his poems have been set to music and are part of today’s Israeli pop music. Natan Zach played a crucial role in the modernisation od Israeli literature. He rejected traditional formalisation and broke with the conventions by combining conversational language with biblical and rabbinic Heb ... more
Adam Zagajewski Adam Zagajewski (born 1945, Poland) is one of the most important writers in contemporary Polish literature. His work belongs to the literary canon of Poland and can be found in encyclopaedias and school books. As one of the spokesmen of the "Generation 68", whose programme he formulated in the manifesto "The Unpresented World" (1974), Adam Zagajewski can be counted among the modern classics of contemporary Polish literature. Adam Zagajewski has made his name above all as a poet, novelist and es ... more
Adam Zagajewski Adam Zagajewski was born in Lvóv in the Ukraine in 1945 and is the author of many books of verse and essays as well as several novels. His debut as a poet came in 1972 with the volume Komunikat. Zagajewski comes from a Polish family that had lived in Lviv for hundreds of years but were expelled to Gliwice in Poland when the city came under Soviet control. He was a vocal critic of the Polish Communist Party from the mid-1970s, resulting in his books being banned from publication until 1989. Zaga ... more
Judith Zander Judith Zander (born 1980 in Anklam) lives in Berlin. In Greifswald she studied German, English and mediaeval and modern history, completing her studies with a diploma from the German Literature Institute in Leipzig. As well as writing poetry, she translates American poetry, including by such poets as Sylvia Plath and Bog Hicok.“Her palimpsests combine hard-hitting satire and subtle irony. Traditions have seldom has the dust knocked off them in a more relaxed, light and fresh way” (Die Welt).Judi ... more Judith Zander (c) Yawan Rai
Ghassan Zaqtan Ghassan Zaqtan (born in Beit Jala in 1954) is one of Palestine‘s most important and innovative poets. He has lived in Jordan, Beirut, Damascus and Tunis, where he began publishing books of poems and worked as an editor of various literary magazines. In 1994 he moved to Ramallah, where in 1998 he co-founded the ‘House of Poetry’ with other Palestinian poets and was the head of the Literature and Publications Department of the Culture Ministry of the autonomous Palestinian Authority. He is current ... more Ghassan Zaqtan