Shu Ting
(b. 1952)

Shu Ting, China's leading female poet, gained fame for her literary work when she was in her twenties. In 1966, the Cultural Revolution, a movement in which artists and intellectuals were persecuted, disrupted Shu Ting's education. Like many Chinese teenagers at that time, she was forced to leave her native province of Beijing and sent to work in the poverty-stricken countryside. In spite of her experience, Shu Ting's faith in the human spirit led her to poetry.

During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese ruler Mao Zedong closed schools and encouraged students to join the Red Guard, a political group that often used violent tactics to discourage artistic endeavors. Many lost their lives during this turbulent time in China's history. Shu Ting returned to the city when the movement began to die down in 1973 and began publishing her work in an underground literary magazine called Today. Her poetry gave voice to the emotional awareness of a generation dominated by the Cultural Revolution.

Despite the turmoil in her country, Shu Ting emerged as a leading artist and achieved immense popularity as one of China's most accessible poets. In 1980, she was among the first to receive official recognition when her work was published in the major journal Shikan. In 1981 and 1983, she won China's National Poetry Award. Shu Ting: Selected Poems, her first poetry collection translated in English, was published in 1994.

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