Dong LI is a multilingual author who translates from Chinese, English, French, and German. He is the English translator of the PEN/Heim-winning The Gleaner Song (Giramondo & Deep Vellum, 2021) by the Chinese poet Song Lin and The Wild Great Wall (Deep Vellum, 2018) by the Chinese poet Zhu Zhu. His full-length PEN/Heim-winning translation of the Chinese poet YE Hui is forthcoming from Deep Vellum. LI’s debut collection of poetry, The Orange Tree (University of Chicago Press, 2023), was the inaugural winner of the Phoenix Emerging Poet Book Prize.
Poetry
Summer 2025
water chestnuts and the opening wound
before the firstborn of the newlyweds cried her first morning, her father was sent to thefront. local warlords marched north to the river that divided the border. they crawled on […]
Rural Spaces
Fall 2024
The Long View
The Kenyon Review · “The Long View” by HUI Ye translated and read by Dong LI From afar, the roof of the monastery appearsTo emerge in ancient twilight, its bell […]
Winter 2016
north of the earth (an excerpt)
when the child was a child he ran with his arms swinging the rice field flooded he slept by a kerosene lamp the lamp not yet lit through the small […]