Duo Duo’s Followers (13)

Duo Duo

Born

Beijing, China

Genre

Poetry

Influences

Charles Baudelaire, Alexander Pushkin, T.S. Eliot, Marina Tsvetaeva, F ...more

edit data

Duo Duo 多多 (Beijing; 1951-) is the pen name of Chinese poet Li Shizheng, one of the great writers from the Misty Poet school of the 1970s. He chose his name which means 'too much, too much' from the given name of his daughter who died in infancy. A former opera singer, he has been called a 'master of Chinese language' who dreams 'between reality and the poetic realm.'

Duo Duo began reading and writing poetry at the height of the Cultural Revolution. In 1966 he was sent for ‘reformation’ at a farm in Baiyangdian where he would, ironically, go on to meet such contemporary poets like Mang Ke, Shi Zhi along with Bei Dao, his classmate, who would officially form what would be later known as the Misty Poets literary movement. Despite a lack of for Duo Duo 多多 (Beijing; 1951-) is the pen name of Chinese poet Li Shizheng, one of the great writers from the Misty Poet school of the 1970s. He chose his name which means 'too much, too much' from the given name of his daughter who died in infancy. A former opera singer, he has been called a 'master of Chinese language' who dreams 'between reality and the poetic realm.'

Duo Duo began reading and writing poetry at the height of the Cultural Revolution. In 1966 he was sent for ‘reformation’ at a farm in Baiyangdian where he would, ironically, go on to meet such contemporary poets like Mang Ke, Shi Zhi along with Bei Dao, his classmate, who would officially form what would be later known as the Misty Poets literary movement. Despite a lack of formal college education Duo Duo read widely as to what was available, and his writing was directly inspired by the likes of Baudelaire, Pushkin, Eliot, Tsvetaeva, Lorca and Plath. His beginning poems were politically condemning in nature, short and elliptical, however his style shifted in the mid-1980s towards more philosophical and essayistic constructions paying more attention to syntax, repetition and rhetoric. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, Duo Duo left China along with many other dissident poets. Splitting his time between the UK, Canada and Netherlands, Duo Duo became widely translated and published many poems that dealt with the various meditations on exiled rootlessness. Despite his Western influence and global reach, Duo Duo’s poetry still remains grounded in classical Chinese prosody, carving out instead a new tradition of his own. He returned to China in 2004 to great acclaim and is currently teaching at Hainan University.

His translations into English include the verse collections Looking Out from Death: From the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square (1989), Crossing the Sea (1998) and The Boy Who Catches Wasps (2002) as well as Snow Plain (2010), a recent collection of short stories. Duo Duo is the twenty-first laureate of the Neustadt Prize and the first Chinese recipient of the award, having been nominated as a ‘a resolute seer of some of the most basic, universal human values that have often been shadowed in our troubled modern time: creativity, nature, love, dreams, and wishful thinking.’
...more

Combine Editions
Duo Duo’s books

Average rating: 4.16 · 327 ratings · 47 reviews · 44 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Boy Who Catches Wasps: Selected Poetry of Duo Duo by Duo Duo, Gregory Lee (Translator) 4.32 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 2002 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Snow Plain: Selected Stories (Jintian) by Duo Duo, John Crespi (Translator) 4.14 avg rating — 14 ratings — published 2010	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Words as Grain: New and Selected Poems by Duo Duo, Lucas Klein (Goodreads Author) (Translator) 4.22 avg rating — 9 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Looking Out from Death: From the Cultural Revolution to Tiananmen Square by Duo Duo, Gregory Lee (Translator) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1989 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Promesas, Poesía Escogida really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 7 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Crossing the Sea: Poems in Exile/Poems in China by Duo Duo (Editor), Yu Li Ming (Translator) 3.14 avg rating — 7 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Wiersze wybrane by Duo Duo, Małgorzata Religa (Translator) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 4 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Er is geen nieuwe dag by Duo Duo, Maghiel van Crevel (Translator) really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Poesía china contemporánea: Abriendo alas hasta el infinito by Duo Duo, Bai Hua, Sun Wenbo liked it 3.00 avg rating — 2 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Statements: the new Chinese poetry of Duoduo really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 1 rating — published 1989	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Duo Duo…

Quotes by Duo Duo (?)

“In the process, what must be spoken meets what cannot be said. Each word is a catalyst, requiring the writer to break out forcefully from another story, from the primitive camp where history, society, and politics converge, to touch upon that 'what' and that 'who.' At that touch, one finds the unlimited boundaries of man, concealed by words.”
― Duo Duo

tags: words, writing

2 likes

“Perhaps pondering words is also a form of seeking justice. If a monologue can invite a chorus, then perhaps it can speak for others as well.”
― Duo Duo

tags: justice, poetry

2 likes

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
21st Century Lite...: Which Authors/Books Has This Group Missed/Overlooked? (12/23/18)	20	64	Jan 03, 2019 07:41AM
The Mookse and th...: Neustadt Prize	30	152	Oct 21, 2025 09:33PM

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite Duo to Goodreads.

Duo Duo’s Followers (13)

Duo Duo

Combine EditionsDuo Duo’s books

Topics Mentioning This Author

Combine Editions
Duo Duo’s books