Yang Lian, the son of parents in the diplomatic service, was brought up in Beijing from infancy. He started writing in the 1970s during the Cultural Revolution and was sent to the countryside for re-education. In 1978, he participated in the 'Spring of Beijing' democratic movement as one of the main writers of the well-known underground literary magazine Today. He published in the magazine Dandelion which was subsequently banned. Yang was a leading member of the Menglong poets and published several Chinese-language books of poetry in the 1980s and was among the poets condemned for their association with modernism. In 1980 he was regarded by literary critics as one of the main writers of modernism which evoked a universal controversy in China. His books Huang and Ren de Zijue were banned in China.
Yang first arrived in Australia in August 1988. During the next six months he participated in the Spoleto Festival of the Arts (Melbourne) and Carnivale (Sydney); lectured at universities in Adelaide, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney and wrote the sixty poems later published in Masks and Crocodile.
After visiting New Zealand he returned to Australia in December 1989. While residing in Canberra, he compiled twenty-five poems for publication in The Dead in Exile. He returned to Australia again in 1992 as poet-in-residence at the School of Asian Studies, University of Sydney. Yang subsequently became a New Zealand citizen and has written and published in Chinese and English translation. His work has been translated into English, Dutch and German. Yang has worked as a teacher and has read and discussed his work at festivals and universities around the world. He has lived in London since 1991.
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