BUDAPEST, May 22 -- The selected poems of noted Chinese poet Jidi Majia were presented on Monday in Hungary's capital Budapest at a ceremony organized by the Hungarian Pen Club in the Royal Castle, in the presence of the poet himself.
Jidi Majia is an indigenous poet of the Nuosu (Yi) people of mountainous Southwestern China. His work expresses the mythic world and cultural tradition of the Nuosu, while being deeply concerned with the urgent problems of global strife.
Born in 1961 in Sichuan, Jidi Majia has been awarded his country's most important literary prizes. He is vice-president of the China Writers Association and founder of the Qinghai Lake Poetry Festival.
The poet told his audience, composed of fellow writers and translators, from Hungary and China alike, that it was his first time in Hungary, and he was glad to here the "music" of his poems even in their Hungarian forms.
A half-dozen of oeuvres were presented from his book: I, Snow Leopard. Speaking in the voice of the endangered Snow Leopard, poet Jidi Majia conjured a mysterious, magnificent creature with a message about the consequences of unchecked violence toward animals -- and equally about the violence that threatens the heart of the human species.
The "Mother", as well as the "Homeland", were both recurrent elements, representative of his work.
His host, Hungarian poet Geza Szocs, who is the president of the Hungarian Pen Club and also a cultural advisor to the Hungarian Prime Minister, also read some of his works that have been translated from Chinese.
Participants of the soiree agreed that mutual reading and understanding of other nation's poetry really brought people together, despite the huge geographical distances separating Hungary and China.
