UNLV's International Institute of Modern Letters will host a bilingual reading by exiled Chinese writers Bei Dao and Er Tai Gao at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19 in the auditorium of the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Natural History, located on the UNLV campus. The event is free and open to the public.
Bei Dao, who is considered to be one of China's foremost contemporary poets, was the first of 33 Chinese intellectuals to sign a petition that demanded respect for human rights and democracy two months before the Tiananmen Square massacre. He has been a candidate several times for the Nobel Prize in literature and was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Bei Dao's early poems were a source of inspiration during the April 5th Democracy Movement of 1976. His books include "Unlock"; "At the Sky's Edge: Poems 1991-1996"; "Landscape Over Zero"; "Forms of Distance"; "Old Snow"; and "The August Sleepwalker." He is also the author of short stories and essays.
In 1978, he and colleague Mang Ke founded the underground literary magazine "Jintian," which ceased publication under police order. In 1990 the magazine was revived, and today Bei Dao serves as editor in chief.
Er Tai Gao's essays and criticism have been published in both the United States and abroad. A 1999 recipient of the Witness of the World prize, he currently writes and paints in Las Vegas with aid from City of Asylum Las Vegas.
Er Tai Gao's published works include "The Struggle of Beauty" and "Beauty, The Symbol of Freedom." He is currently completing the third volume of a memoir, "To Seek My Homeland." His paintings, many of which pay homage to the Chinese Buddhist cave paintings of the first millennium, were recently shown at the Paseo Verde Library in Henderson for the Vegas Valley Book Festival.
The format of the event will include a reading by Bei Dao and Er Tai Gao in Chinese, followed by English translations provided by Josh Kryah, UNLV Schaeffer Fellow in poetry; and Lara Ramsey, a recent alumna of the UNLV International MFA program.
For more information, contact Amber Withycombe at 895-0505.
Cities of Asylum Las Vegas is funded by the International Institute of Modern Letters and the North American Network of Cities of Asylum, an international program that provides a safe place where writers of conscience who are under threat of death, torture, or imprisonment can live and work.
