YAN Li (严力)

YAN Li
2003 Resident
  • Asia
  • Eastern Asia
  • China
Chinese

YAN Li / 严力 (painter, poet, fiction writer; China b. 1954, Beijing) was a member of a group of artists known as "The Stars," famous for their daring exhibition of works tinged with abstraction and surrealism; as a writer, he is identified with the Misty Poets, a group that gained notice in the late 70s for their subversion of social realism via personal emotions and private imagery. In 1987, he founded Yi-Hang (First Line) in New York, a quarterly journal that features the works of contemporary Chinese poets as well as translations of American poems. His work has been translated into French, Italian, English, Swedish, Korean and German. He has held many exhibitions and published numerous books, most recently a novel titled Meet with 9.11 (Literature & Art Press, Shanghai, 2002). He is participating courtesy of the Freeman Foundation.

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Happening Now

  • In addition to becoming the Berlin LitFest’s first curator-in-residence, Helon Habila has also just received Kaduna Books and Art Festival’s KabaFest Lifetime Achievement Award, celebrating his "exceptional writing and significant contributions to the development of literature globally."

  • Congratulations to Enah Johnscott, whose film Half Heaven won three awards at the Cameroon International Film Festival—best film, best director, and best cinematographer.

  • We regret the passing, on April 11, 2024, of the distinguished Romanian author and critic Dan Cristea, who served as the editor in chief of the Luceafărul de Dimineață cultural monthly. In addition to being an alum of the 1985 Fall Residency, Cristea received his PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Iowa.

  • Our congratulations to 1986 Fall Residency writer Kwame Dawes, who has been named the new poet laureate of Jamaica.

  • Congratulations to our colleagues Jennifer Croft and Aron Aji, who are among those serving as judges for the National Book Awards this year, in their case in the category of translated literature.

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