Bei Dao · The Rose of Time

Author: Bei Dao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-08-01
Features: What kind of book is this, and how should we read it? In this era of "living in a rush, not enough time to feel" (Pushkin), we rarely immerse ourselves in memories. But in the spring of 2005 (this year is not insignificant, although Huang Renyu once said that the 15th year of the Wanli era was insignificant), Bei Dao's book opened the floodgates of my memories. By the way! I really want to say, this is a book that can inspire us! It will inspire us to delve into personal memories, which is also a memory of an era—the 1970s or 1980s. We once lived, translated, and wrote in a legendary way. Although some people have already passed away, such as Zhao Yifan, Gu Cheng, Hai Zi, and Luo Yihuo, but as Bei Dao says in this book: "Artists will die, but the happiness of the life they have experienced is eternal." (Quoted from Pasternak's essay in the book). Indeed, in Bei Dao's memories, the 1970s and 1980s are eternal. It was Bei Dao's book that brought me back to those long-gone years and allowed the deceased to be resurrected, to shine once again. My past life and writing seemed to follow this book and experience it all over again. Everything is present, truly tangible. It immersed me in memories, the years when I first encountered poetry, the moments when I met outstanding translated poems. It was also Bei Dao's book that fulfilled a mission. It guided us to recall, to recall the unique context of an era; at the same time, it also told us how the modernity of Western poetry was realized in China through translations. But most importantly, we must understand that the modernity of Chinese writing is carried out through dialogue with these Western poets. We are so closely connected that we are not strangers at all, of course, with absolutely no sense of difference. Let us open the pages of this book and enter the memories together with the author, into the translation and writing of an era!