Video lecture - Polish translation of Coming Home (还乡 / Powrót do domu, 2017) by Chinese poet Li Hao 李浩

Joanna Krenz (PhD) is assistant professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, currently currently fellow at the DFG Center for Advanced Studies “Russian-Language Poetry in Transition” (FOR 2603) based at the University of Trier; she is working on a monograph on Polish and Chinese poetry since 1989.

Further information about Joanna Krenz can be found on her profile page: https://lyrik-in-transition.uni-trier.de/fellows/joanna-krenz/

About this video:

Joanna Krenz reads her translator’s introduction and three poems from Chinese poet Li Hao’s (李浩 b. 1984) collection “Coming Home” (还乡 / Powrót do domu, 2017) in her rendition into Polish.

The poems selected for this video, from the author’s rich and diverse oeuvre, are: “Elegy – Mourning a Fellow Worker” (哀歌––悼工友 / Elegia. Pamięci towarzysza pracy), “Pangolin, Republic” (穿山甲, 共和国/ Pangolin, republika), and “Childhood” (童年 / Dzieciństwo).

They constitute an intriguing blur of Christian and Eastern mysticism and mythology, political satire, nostalgia for the author’s native village, and true sensibility to other people and all things visible and invisible.