Dong Li, Fall 2025 Translator in Residence, Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication and the Humanities Council

In this talk, Dong Li, will share his own practice and personal travails as an exophonic poet and multilingual translator. Drawing examples from his recent works, he will present his moments of embarrassments, dilemmas, and failures as well as those of resilience and joy that arise out of his love of language and commitment to the literary arts.

About the Poet:

Dong Li is a multilingual author who translates from Chinese, English, French, and German. His full-length English translations from Chinese include the PEN/Heim-winning The Gleaner Song (Giramondo / Deep Vellum, 2021) by SONG Lin, The Wild Great Wall (Deep Vellum, 2018) by ZHU Zhu, and the PEN/Heim-winning and forthcoming The Ruins (Deep Vellum, 2025) by YE Hui. He is also the German co-translator of Gesellschaft für Flugversuche (Carl Hanser Verlag, 2019) by ZANG Di and the Chinese translator of books by Victoria Chang, Forrest Gander, Anne Weber, and Eliot Weinberger. His debut poetry collection, The Orange Tree (University of Chicago Press, 2023), was the inaugural winner of the Phoenix Emerging Poet Book Prize and a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Four Quartets Prize.