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The Orange Tree
Series: Phoenix Poets
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Check link for latest rating. ( 66 ratings, 24 reviews)
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Format: Paperback / softback
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The Orange Tree
$3399
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?
Readers interested in contemporary poetry that explores family and history through innovative language will find this collection compelling. Those drawn to themes of migration, memory, and Chinese cultural narratives will appreciate Li’s unique and experimental voice.
Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and
still learning, it may not be perfect - your
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Description
Debut collection of poems that weaves stories of family history, war, and migration.
Dong Li’s The Orange Tree is a collection of narrative poems that braids forgotten legends, personal sorrows, and political upheavals into a cinematic account of Chinese history as experienced by one family. Amid chaos and catastrophe, the child narrator examines a yellowed family photo to find resemblances and learns a new language, inventing compound words to conjure and connect family stories. These invented words and the calligraphy of untranslated Chinese characters appear in lists separating the book’s narrative sections.
Li’s lyrical and experimental collection transcends the individual, placing generations of family members and anonymous others together in a single moment that surpasses chronological time. Weaving through stories of people with little means, between wars and celebrations, over bridges and walls, and between trees and gardens, Li’s poems offer intimate perspectives on times that resonate with our own. The result is an unflinching meditation on family history, collective trauma, and imaginative recovery.
The Orange Tree is the recipient of the inaugural Phoenix Emerging Poet Book Prize for 2023.
Series: Phoenix Poets
View allBook Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?
Critics praise Li's approach as "strange, mournful, and obliquely beautiful," highlighting the blend of personal and collective history without nostalgia or rote storytelling. The Los Angeles Review of Books commends Li for restoring dignity to forgotten lives through unsentimental conviction and vivid imagism, offering a fresh perspective on history that resists propaganda and pity.
Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9780226826165
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 31 March 2023
Country: United States
Imprint: University of Chicago Press
Illustration: 7 halftones
Contributors:
- Foreword by Srikanth Reddy
Audience: General / adult
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 10.0mm
Width: 165.0mm
Height: 241.0mm
Weight: 172g
Pages: 88
Collections
About the Author
Dong Li is a multilingual author who translates from Chinese, English, French, and German. Born and raised in China, he was educated at Deep Springs College and Brown University. His poems have been published in Conjunctions, Fence, Kenyon Review, POETRY, Poetry Daily, and many others.
Also by Dong Li
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