Mirror

This bilingual posthumous collection is a detailed, retrospective look at one of the more brilliant poetic minds of the twenty-first century, and includes an introduction by Bai Hua and afterword by Bei Dao. Zhang Zao left China in 1986 and lived in Germany until his death at 48 in 2010; only about 90 of his poems survive. A dark humor vivifies Zhang Zao's later work as he eroticizes the harrowing: doubt, finality, and then nothingness. The choice of these poems span his short career: "Mirror," one of his earliest and best known works starts the collection, while "Lantern Town" was written less than two months before his death.