Writing about the nature of the self, Bei Dao's work depicted the intimacy of passion, love and friendship in a society where trust could be a matter of life and death. Jintian ultimately was shut down in 1980, and the poet was forced into exile after the Tienanmen Square massacre of 1989. However, he has found a new voice in a renewed Jintian , now published in Sweden. Rebellion is a major theme of my generation. But I believe rebellion begins at the personal level, for instance, my rebellion against my father.
Poetry is a form of rebellion against the decades of chaos in China.
Bei Dao has cited as his literary mentors Garcia Lorca and the Spanish poets Rafael Alberti, Vicente Aleixandre and Antonio Machado. He also enjoys the work of the German-speaking Paul Celan. He transforms his experience in the concentration camps into a language of pain. That is very similar to what I am trying to do. Many poets separate their experience from the language they use in poetry, but in the case of Celan there is a fusion, a convergence of experience and experimental language.