Possibly my best-selling title of the year is a book by someone virtually no one in the UK has heard of...
Xu Zhimo
was an early 20th-century Chinese poet who sought to promote a modern
Chinese poetry that broke with convention and followed Western forms,
especially the style of the Romantic and Symbolist poets, with whose
work he fell in love while studying at King’s College, Cambridge in
1922.
Verses
from his most famous poem, ‘Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again’, are
inscribed on a monument to him behind King’s Chapel. In light of his
immense and ongoing popularity in China, Xu Zhimo can be counted as one
of Cambridge’s most influential alumni.
Because of his importance to Chinese 20th-Century culture, (his poems are taught to every school child) his monument is now included in the official Chinese tour recommendations. Hundreds, if not thousands of Chinese now visit Cambridge every year to see his favourite spot, a willow tree on the backs. And luckily I manage to sell a lot of them a dual language book of his poems.
