PREFACE

by Martin Winter

When your poetry gets translated into Chinese by the world-famous poet Yi Sha and published in the most populous country on earth by the world-famous poet Shen Haobo and his publishing company, what do you say?

Poetry is what I want to talk about all the time.Chinese poetry, most often. Of course there are so many other great things, including what people write or sing in other languages, or in different kinds of Chinese. But what I understand, to some degree, and feel very honored to participate in is literature, basically. And in today's literature, how many people are there who care about things outside of literature? I would say there are many, maybe a majority, in China and also in other places.

What exactly is China like? Why do you ask? Actually, many people are asking such questions. Many Chinese, also all sorts of people all over. Because China is very big and has a big role in global economics right now.What is Austria like? America? Latvia? Brazil? In the past two years, many places over the world had become worse in terms of solidarity, for workers, for ordinary people, for helping each other. At the same time, awareness for environment issues has generally increased. And there is a feeling that resistance is needed, against some trends. So there is hope, you could say.

What does this have to do with Yi Sha translating my poems? Well, maybe poetry is directly related to such issues. Or maybe not. Yi Sha said he always felt he should be following current poetry abroad, ever since he grew up and started writing. Me too, I thought the same. Living in Austria, maybe I am a little more radical, because although I had two majors, both Chinese studies and German language and literature, and although I am participating in German-language literature, this current German-language literature is not my focus. And this kind of background and attitude obviously has positive and negative consequences.

Anyway, how did I get here? It feels like a miracle.From 2013, when I first met Yi Sha, even before, watching his NPC unfolding online, and starting to participate; I knew he was working miracles. Writing, translating, teaching and editing, he was creating a land more open and generous than anything I had ever encountered in any language. This is a land in literature, but very close to life, to people whose life isn't about literature, not consciously.So I feel very honored, very lucky and very happy. To me China is a miracle coming out of Xi'an, the ancient magical city, located in today's center of avant-garde poetry.

Spring 2019, Vienna