Hongbin Liu was born in China, and was active in the democracy movement of the 1980s. He arrived in London in September 1989. His work includes poetry, criticism, short stories, and translation of western poetry into Chinese. Index on Censorship wrote that he “has continued to compose in his own language and has actively promoted contemporary Chinese literature in the West. Poetry has always been his chief love.”

Recent articles

The members of Oxford University are preparing to elect a new professor of poetry, an honoured literary position whose previous incumbents include W.H. Auden and Seamus Heaney. One of the candidates is the versatile, subtle Australia-born author of the song cycle The Voice of Love and numerous poetry collections, Peter Porter. His friend and fellow writer Liu Hongbin talks to him about poetry, patrimony and professorship. We also publish three poems from his latest collection, 'Max is Missing'.

Liu Hongbin is a rare poet whose talent is found even in translation between the worlds of Chinese and English. We publish four of his poems, and in a recent interview, he describes how he has created his own China out of post-1989 exile. First, Candida Clark introduces Liu Hongbin.