BEI DAO

born Aug. 2, 1949, Peking , China Wade-Giles romanization Pei tao, original name Zhao Zhenkai (Chao Chen-k'ai) Chinese poet and writer of fiction whose works were published underground for most of his career. He was one of the originators of menglongshi, or "shadows poetry," which uses metaphor and cryptic language to avoid directly discussing contemporary political and social issues. In the 1970s he was considered the poetic voice of the pro-democracy faction of his generation. The eruption of the Cultural Revolution in 1966 interrupted Bei Dao's formal education. A member of the Red Guards for a short time and then a construction worker, he began to write as a substitute for active political involvement and as a protest against contemporary official literature. Bei Dao ("North Island") was one of several noms de plume under which he wrote covertly in the 1970s. His poetry gradually gained a hearing in official publications but was considered difficult and arcane. Bei Dao shi xuan ("Bei Dao's Collected Poems") was published in 1986 and in an English translation as The August Sleepwalker in 1988. The collection contains the poems "The Answer," "An End or a Beginning," and "Portrait of a Young Poet." In June 1989, when the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred, Bei Dao was in Berlin. He did not return to China but traveled throughout the West, gaining an international audience for his poetry, which began to reflect his profound sorrow at separation from his family and homeland. Under the pseudonym Shi Mo, Bei Dao wrote such fiction as Waves (1990), which includes a novella and stories. His other poetry collections include Old Snow (1991) and Lan fang zi (1998; "Blue House").