{{Short description|Chinese poet, author, and writer (born 1963)}} {{family name hatnote|Xi|lang=Chinese}} {{Infobox writer | name = 西川 | image = 西川 20240114.jpg | image_size = | caption = Xi Chuan in January, 2024 | native_name = | birth_name = {{lang|zh|刘军}} | pseudonym = {{lang|zh|西川}} | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1963}} | birth_place = Xuzhou, Jiangsu, China | death_date = | death_place = | resting_place = | residence = | occupation = | language = | nationality = | ethnicity = | citizenship = | education = | alma_mater = Peking University | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = | notable_works = | parents = | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | influences = | influenced = | awards = | signature = | website = | portaldisp = }}
'''Xi Chuan''' (Chinese: 西川; born 1963), pen name of Liu Jun (Chinese: 刘军), is a poet, essayist, and translator.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|date=2011-12-13|title=Xi Chuan|url=https://www.ndbooks.com/author/xi-chuan/|access-date=2020-09-19|website=www.ndbooks.com|language=en}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> He is considered one of the most influential and celebrated contemporary Chinese poets.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Poets|first=Academy of American|title=About Xi Chuan {{!}} Academy of American Poets|url=https://poets.org/poet/xi-chuan|access-date=2020-09-19|website=poets.org}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite web|date=2012-04-12|title=Notes on the Mosquito|url=https://www.ndbooks.com/book/notes-on-the-mosquito/|access-date=2020-09-19|website=www.ndbooks.com|language=en}}</ref> An author of experimental poetry and editor of underground poetry journals,<ref name=":04">{{Cite book |last=Hockx |first=Michel |author-link=Michel Hockx |title=Literature and Censorship in Modern China |date=2026 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781032775838 |location=New York, NY}}</ref>{{Reference page|page=87}} his poems have been said to "carry a sense of the world’s plentitude and of the world’s puzzlement."<ref name=":2" /> In addition to his poetry, he has published two essay volumes, one book of criticism, a play, and translations of works by Pound, Borges, and Miłosz, and others.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|title=In the Shadow of Oxymoron {{!}} The International Writing Program|url=https://iwp.uiowa.edu/91st/vol7-num2/in-the-shadow-of-oxymoron|access-date=2020-09-19|website=iwp.uiowa.edu|archive-date=2023-12-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231228223129/https://iwp.uiowa.edu/91st/vol7-num2/in-the-shadow-of-oxymoron|url-status=dead}}</ref>
Xi Chuan was born in Xuzhou, Jiangsu province and raised in Beijing.<ref name=":4">{{Cite web|title=Lucas Klein on Xi Chuan and translating "Written at Thirty"|url=https://poetrysociety.org/features/in-their-own-words/lucas-klein-on-xi-chuan-and-translating-written-at-thirty|access-date=2020-09-19|website=Poetry Society of America|language=en}}</ref> He attended a foreign-languages school for diplomats, an unusual opportunity at a time when most schools were closed.<ref name=":4" /> At Beijing University, he wrote a senior thesis on Ezra Pound's translations of Chinese poetry, earning an English degree.<ref name=":4" /> That's when he adopted his pen name, Xi Chuan (meaning "West Stream").<ref name=":4" /> After college, he worked as a magazine editor for ''Huangqiu'' (''Globus'') and launched ''Qingxiang'' (''Tendency''), an independent literary journal that ran from 1988 until it was shut down in 1992, after only 3 issues.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book|last=Xi, Chuan, 1963-|title=Notes on the mosquito : selected poems|date=2012|publisher=New Directions|others=Klein, Lucas.|isbn=978-0-8112-1987-7|location=New York|chapter=Translator's Introduction|oclc=759908687}}</ref><ref name=":6">{{Cite web|date=2010-01-15|title=Xi Chuan|url=http://www.literaturfestival.com/bios1_1_6_608.html|access-date=2020-09-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100115153935/http://www.literaturfestival.com/bios1_1_6_608.html|archive-date=2010-01-15}}</ref> From 1990 to 1995, he was one of the editors of the unofficial magazine ''Modern Han Poetry''.<ref name=":6" /> He also acted in Jia Zhangke's 2000 underground film ''Platform''.<ref name=":5" />
Xi gained recognition in the period following the Misty Poets in the late 1980s, in the early period of the reform and opening up.<ref name=":2" /> In 1989, two of his closest friends, both poets who had attended Beijing University, died: Hai Zi committed suicide on March 26, aged twenty-five, and Luo Yihe died from a cerebral hemorrhage, aged twenty-eight, on May 31.<ref name=":5" /> (Xi later published Hai Zi's works posthumously in 1997.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2013-06-15|title=literaturhaus.net - Poesie in die Stadt 2009|url=http://www.literaturhaus.net/projekte/2009/poesie/xi.htm|access-date=2020-09-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130615155206/http://www.literaturhaus.net/projekte/2009/poesie/xi.htm|archive-date=2013-06-15}}</ref>) Following these deaths and the failure of the Tiananmen Square protests that year, he barely wrote for two years.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":4" /> This break took his poetry from "condensed, numinous lyricism" combining classical Chinese influences with Western modernism to "meditative, expansive prose poems that dismantled the aestheticism and musicality of his previous self".<ref name=":2" />
He teaches classical and modern Chinese literature at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and lives in Beijing, China.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /> Before that, he had taught Western literature in Chinese translation and introductory English.<ref name=":4" /> He has held appointments at universities outside China like New York University and the University of Victoria.<ref name=":3" /> He has won prizes in China, Germany, and from UNESCO.<ref name=":5" />
== Awards ==
* Modern Chinese Poetry Award, 1994<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> * Lu Xun Prize for Literature, 2001<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /> * Zhuang Zhongwen Prize for Literature, 2003<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" />
== Selected publications ==
* ''Chinese Roses'' (''Zhongguo de meigui'', 1991)<ref name=":5" /> * ''A Fictitious Family Tree'' (''Xugou de jiapu'',1997)<ref name=":3" /><ref name=":5" /> * ''A Secret Convergence'' (''Yinmi de huihe'', 1997)<ref name=":5" /> * ''The Poetry of Xi Chuan'' (''Xi Chuan shi xuan'', 1997, reprinted as ''Xi Chuan de shi'' in 1999)<ref name=":5" /> * ''Roughly Speaking'' (''Dayi ruci'', 1997)<ref name=":5" /> * ''Selected Poems of Xi Chuan,1986-1996'' (2002)<ref name=":3" /> * ''Depths and Shallowness'' (''Shenqian'', 2006)<ref name=":5" /> * ''Personal Preferences'' (''Geren haowu'', 2008)<ref name=":5" /> * ''Notes on the Mosquito'', translated by Lucas Klein into English, 2012<ref name=":2" /> * '' The Three from Peking University: Haizi, Luo Yihe, and Xi Chuan '', Delufa Press, Rome (2025) translated by Francesco De Luca into Italian<ref name=":5" />
== References == {{Reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Xi, Chuan}} Category:1963 births Category:20th-century Chinese poets Category:21st-century Chinese poets Category:Writers from Xuzhou Category:Living people