Dreaming and Awakening, a 182-page paperback collection of selected poems by the Chinese poet Zhao Lihong, translated from the Chinese by Xu Qin, Micah Cao, and Zhou Wenbiao.

Zhao Lihong (born 1952 in Shanghai) is known for work that draws on classical Chinese poetic traditions while engaging the pressures of modern life. His poems move between lyric intimacy and civic memory, tracing themes of solitude, impermanence, and moral attention amid rapid social and technological change.

The volume opens with “Dreamland,” a six-part sequence written in 1970 during the Cultural Revolution. In dreamlike scenes where beauty and danger appear side by side, Zhao’s imagery turns private grief into a broader portrait of a fractured era. Recurring motifs—snow, mud, blood transformed into petals, and figures that shift from alluring to threatening—suggest both ideological confinement and the possibility of renewal.

A later centerpiece, “Dreaming and Awakening—On Artificial Intelligence” (Shanghai, 2023), revisits the boundary between illusion and reality in the digital age. The poem argues that computation can imitate patterns of thought, but not the embodied perception and inner agency that give human experience its depth. Other highlights include maternal elegies, meditations on light and spiritual release, and poems that transform wounds into a language of recovery.

About the Author

Zhao Lihong is a poet, essayist, and novelist and currently serves as chairperson of the Shanghai International Poetry Festival. He has published more than 100 books across genres. His international honors include Serbia’s Smederevo Golden Key International Poetry Award (2013), Romania’s Mihai Eminescu International Poetry Award (2019), the International Bing Xin Literature Award Gold Prize (2024), and the Montale Literature Award in Italy (2025). His work has been translated into numerous languages and published internationally.