Sometimes Someone Is Only a Shadow

Yan An, a prominent poet in contemporary China, is the author of more than twenty collections. He’s received several national awards, including The Sixth Lu Xun Literary Prize, one of China’s top four literary honors. He is vice president of the Poetry Institute of China, vice president of the Shaanxi Writers Association, and the head of Yan River, one of the oldest and most famous literary journals in Northwestern China. In English, his collection A Naturalist’s Manor (Chax Press, 2021), translated by Chen Du and Xisheng Chen, was shortlisted for the American Literary Translators Association’s Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. (updated 10/2025)

Chen Du’s cotranslation, with Xisheng Chen, of Yan An’s collection A Naturalist’s Manor (Chax Press, 2021) was shortlisted for the 2022 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize. Their cotranslation of Yan An’s Rock Arrangement was a runner-up for Carnegie Mellon University Press’s 2025 Literary Translation Prize and will be published in fall 2026. Chen Du’s translations, poems, and essays have been published in more than fifty literary journals. She has a master’s in biophysics from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, SUNY at Buffalo, and another in radio physics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. (updated 10/2025)

Xisheng Chen is a Chinese American lexicologist, ESL grammarian, linguist, and educator. For four decades, he has published translations in many newspapers and journals in both the U.S. and abroad. Formerly an adjunct professor in the departments of English and social sciences at Trine University, Angola, Indiana, he works as a freelance translator for a joint project between JTG, Inc., and the U.S. Department of Justice. (updated 10/2025)