Poet
Aku Wuwu
Aku Wuwu
(China, 1964)
Biography
Aku Wuwu 阿库乌雾 (b. 1964) is a poet of the Nuosu subgroup of the large Yi nationality (Yizu) in southwest China. He began writing poems and prose poems in the 1980s, and is known as the creator of modern Yi poetry written in Yi. Like most other ethnic minority poets in China, he also writes in Chinese. Known for his powerful performances of poetry drawing on traditional themes and motifs juxtaposed with contemporary challenges facing his ethnic group, Aku’s best known work is “Calling Back the Spirit of Zhyge Alu,” which refers to an ancient mythic hero.Author of many volumes of poetry in both Nuosu and Chinese, Aku Wuwu is also a literary critic and advocate of “mother tongue” poetry and interested in issues of cultural hybridity. His translated works include Tiger Traces: Selected Nuosu and Chinese Poetry of Aku Wuwu (Aku Wuwu and Mark Bender, ed. 2006. Columbus: Foreign Languages Publications) and Coyote Traces: Aku Wuwu’s Poetic Sojourn in America (Aku Wuwu 2015, Wen Peihong and Mark Bender, trans. Beijing: The Ethnic Publishing House/Columbus: The Ohio State University National East Asian Resource Center).
© Mark Bender
Poems
Poems of Aku Wuwu
Sponsors
Partners
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