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The Lantern and the Night Moths

The Lantern and the Night Moths: Five Modern and Contemporary Chinese Poets in Translation

Full cover spread of The Lantern & the Night Moths. The cover has a lantern with a moth flying towards it, along with the title in English and Chinese and the subtitle, Five Modern and Contemporary Chinese Poets, and the byline Selected and Translated by Yilin Wang 王艺霖. The back cover has four blurbs along with the Invisible Books logo.

Featured in Electric Literature and The Toronto Star‘s anticipated books lists for 2024 
Featured in the Quill & Quire Spring 2024 Preview & received a starred review
#1 Bestseller for Modern Chinese Poetry and #1 Bestseller for Contemporary Chinese Poetry on Amazon

“Poetry is what survives translation. Here, in the pages of Yilin Wang’s The Lantern and the Night Moths, it not only survives, it thrives, shining all the more brilliantly, persistently, and heroically. Vivid and moving, Wang’s beautiful translations and reflective essays grant us entry into the poems of Qiu Jin, Zhang Qiaohui, Fei Ming, Xiao Xi, and Dai Wangshu, while also helping us understand the difficult choices and challenges that lie at the human heart of the translator’s work.”

—Neil Aitken, poet and co-translator of The Book of Cranes: Selected Poems of Zang Di from Chinese

See Invisible Publishing’s website for the full book description and all the blurbs.

Pre-orders are crucial in helping a book garner interest around launch time and encourage booksellers to take a book seriously, so please consider pre-ordering if you’re interested.

I recommend ordering through your local bookstore, but you can get it anywhere where books are sold. Thanks so much! Here are some places I like to direct people to:

Advance review copies are available for request on Edelweiss.

You can also help support the book by:

  • Asking your local bookstore to stock it.
  • Requesting that your library order a copy — in Canada and in the UK, libraries will pay writers and translators a license fee when their books appear in libraries. You should be able to fill in a request form with your local library.
  • Inviting Yilin to take part in literary events in 2024.

Profiles and Interviews:

Reviews:

Mandarin pronunciation guide:

Qiu Jin 秋瑾:

Qiu is the last name and Jin is the first name. (In Mandarin, family names always appear first.)

Zhang Qiaohui 张巧慧:

Zhang is the last name and Qiaohui is the first name.

Fei Ming 废名:

Fei Ming is a pen name that means “to get rid of one’s name.” The name should always be treated as one word. 

Xiao Xi 小西:

Xiao Xi is a pen name that means “Little West.” The name should be treated as one word. 

Dai Wangshu 戴望舒:

Dai is the last name and Wangshu is the first name. Note that Dai Wangshu is a pen name.

Zhīyīn 知音 kindred spirit(s):

Corrections to typos in the first print run of the physical book:

  • Page 77: Nuwa should be Nüwa
  • Page 95: Dai Wangshu was not *only* one of the most celebrated and renowned poets of his generation (sorry, Dai Wangshu!! lol)
  • Page 101, footnote 7: Xiānggaˇng should be Xiāngǎng, yuˇxiàng should be yǔxiàng, yıˇngkù should be yǐngkù, chūbaˇnshè should be chūbǎnshè
  • Page 101, footnote 11: Shànghǎi wàiyǔ, not Shànghǎi wáiyu (it should be à rather than á)