# Xi Chuan

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{{Short description|Chinese poet, author, and writer (born 1963)}}
{{family name hatnote|[Xi](/source/Xi_(surname))|lang=Chinese}}
{{Infobox writer
| name          = 西川
| image         = 西川 20240114.jpg
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| caption       = Xi Chuan in January, 2024
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| birth_name    = {{lang|zh|刘军}}
| pseudonym     = {{lang|zh|西川}}
| birth_date    = {{Birth year and age|1963}}
| birth_place   = [Xuzhou](/source/Xuzhou), [Jiangsu](/source/Jiangsu), [China](/source/China)
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| alma_mater    = [Peking University](/source/Peking_University)
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'''Xi Chuan''' ([Chinese](/source/Chinese_language): 西川;  born 1963), [pen name](/source/pen_name) of Liu Jun ([Chinese](/source/Chinese_language): 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](/source/Chinese_poetry).<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](/source/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](/source/Ezra_Pound), [Borges](/source/Jorge_Luis_Borges), and [Miłosz](/source/Czes%C5%82aw_Mi%C5%82osz), 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](/source/Xuzhou), [Jiangsu](/source/Jiangsu) province and raised in [Beijing](/source/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](/source/Beijing_University), he wrote a senior thesis on [Ezra Pound](/source/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](/source/Jia_Zhangke)'s 2000 underground film ''[Platform](/source/Platform_(2000_film))''.<ref name=":5" />

Xi gained recognition in the period following the [Misty Poets](/source/Misty_Poets) in the late 1980s, in the early period of the [reform and opening up](/source/reform_and_opening_up).<ref name=":2" /> In 1989, two of his closest friends, both poets who had attended Beijing University, died: [Hai Zi](/source/Hai_Zi) committed suicide on March 26, aged twenty-five, and [Luo Yihe](/source/%3Ait%3ALuo_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](/source/1989_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](/source/Prose_poetry) 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](/source/Central_Academy_of_Fine_Arts) and lives in [Beijing](/source/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](/source/New_York_University) and the [University of Victoria](/source/University_of_Victoria).<ref name=":3" /> He has won prizes in China, Germany, and from [UNESCO](/source/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

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Xi Chuan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Chuan) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Chuan?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.