Bai Hua

Bai Hua, born in Chongqing in 1956, is a contemporary poet, professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Chinese at the School of Humanities, Southwest Jiaotong University, and vice chairman of the Chengdu Writers Association. He began writing poetry in 1979 and is regarded as a representative poet of the post-Obscure poetry movement. His works include the poetry collections Expression and Past Events, the memoir Left: A Lyrical Poet in the Mao Era, and several academic books; he has received the An Gao Poetry Prize, the Shanghai Literature Poetry Prize and the Rougang Poetry Prize. Ten of his books are included here, spanning a wide range of subjects: case-solving and legal-culture books based on Ming dynasty judicial archives, such as Bai Hua on Strange Ming Cases and Ming Imperial Endorsements, cultural essays on material life such as Burning Money: Material Spirit in the Chinese Life-World, and travel writing such as A Kind of Encounter: From Suzhou to Berlin. His writing combines careful use of historical sources with readability, revealing a popular side beyond his poetry.