Yang Lian

Biography:

Yang Lian is a Chinese poet associated with the Misty Poets and also with the Searching for Roots school. He was born in Bern Switzerland in 1955 and raised in Beijing where he attended primary school. His education was interrupted by the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution after 1966. In 1974 he was sent to Changping county near Beijing to undergo 're-education through labor' where he undertook a variety of tasks including digging graves.