Chinese Literature - Li-hua Ying 2010

HAN DONG (1961— )
The Dictionary

HAN DONG (1961— ). Poet and fiction writer. Born in Nanjing, Han Dong moved to rural Jiangsu with his family when he was eight years old. He began writing poetry during his college years. After graduating from the Philosophy Department of Shandong University in 1982, Han taught Marxism at a college in Nanjing until 1993, when he quit his job to become a full-time writer. In 1985, he and some friends, including Yu Jian, founded the poetry journal Tamen (They). A representative of the Generation III poets and a rising star in the experimental literary movement, Han advocated a plebian style of poetry that expresses everyday sentiments. “Youguan da yan ta” (About the Great Wild Goose Pagoda) and “Yi jianguo da hai” (You Have Seen the Sea) are characteristic of his prosaic poems, with more emphasis placed on conceptualization than semantic innovation. In recent years, Han has turned to writing fiction and has published two novels: Zha gen (Taking Roots), featuring a family forced to move to the countryside from the city during the Cultural Revolution, and Wo he ni (You and I) about a man tracing a memory of a love affair. Han’s novels are characteristically meticulous in their description of minute, and at times, dry details.