Description: Green Mountain compiles a representative selection of lyrical poems by contemporary Chinese poet and painter Yang Jian, also a Buddhist, in Fiona Sze-Lorrain's elegant translation. Exploring history, faith, memory, nature, and the various transient complexities of human existence, these poems seek a pure form of simplicity in thought and style, reminiscent of meditative beauty and Asian ink-wash painting aesthetics.
Brief description: Fiona Sze-Lorrain's recent poetry collection is The Ruined Elegance (Princeton, 2016). Also a zheng harpist and translator, she has been a Abigail R. Cohen Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris.
Review Quotes: Fiona Sze-Lorrain's translation captures the spare essence of Yang Jian's poetry in all its honesty and in its deep expression of his own Buddhist faith. This beautiful translation offers the reader a rich and delicate portrait of the poet's world in all its complexity. Sze-Lorrain's profound knowledge of Yang Jian's language, as well as her sensitivity to his imagery, enables her to provide a vivid portrait of both his spiritual and mundane life.--Morris Rossabi, author of A History of China, Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University