“Through the unceasing translation of each other’s works and our responsive poems, Helen and I have built a space where two souls can breathe.”
Ma Yongbo 马永波 for Jade Moon, Editor Ivana Milanovic, Issue 3, 2025
“thank you for your loving Ancient Chinese Poetry, wish to communicate with you more about (ancient and contemporary) poetry“
these were Ma Yongbo’s 马永波 first words to Hong Kong Literature and Art Award winner Helen Pletts 海伦·普莱茨 after she left a short comment on the American website Vox Populi back in February 2024. This would mark the beginning of an international poetic partnership which would cross cultural boundaries and break down language barriers. Yongbo would go on to become Helen’s official Chinese translator, and Helen would collaborate with Yongbo on English translations of his own poetic works. Since February 2024, they have co-translated over 100 poems together, and Helen has written more than 200 poems inspired by Yongbo’s Chinese poetry.
It is an honour to bring these two celebrated poets together in print for the first time, with the publication of Night-Shining White: The Transnational Poetic Dialogue of Helen Pletts and Ma Yongbo. This groundbreaking collection unites the poetry of east and west in a beautifully produced bilingual format, making this book a unique gem of a publication. It contains more than 200 poems, comprising original poetry by both authors, and translations of one another’s work. The collection is illustrated with stunning photographs by the artist Janet Lees.
About the Authors
Helen Pletts is the UK collaborative translator of Chinese poet Ma Yongbo, her official Chinese translator. She is a committee member of CB1 Poetry, the established monthly poetry reading event in Cambridge UK, which has organised poetry readings for many years. Besides Chinese, her work has been translated into Bangla, Greek, Vietnamese, Serbian, Korean, Arabic, Italian, Albanian, Romanian and Spanish.
Helen has five shortlistings for the Bridport Poetry Prize (2018, 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024), two longlistings for The Rialto Nature & Place Prize (2018, 2022), a longlisting for the Ginkgo Prize (2019), a longlisting for the National Poetry Competition (2022), 2nd Prize in the Plaza Prose Poetry Competition (2022-23), and a shortlisting for the Plaza Prose Poetry Competition (2023-24). In July 2026, her poetry, translated by Ma Yongbo, was awarded the Hong Kong Literature and Art Award, an accolade of extraordinary excellence in literary creation, artistic expression and cultural communication by Hong Kong Literature and Art.
Her three collections include the illustrated your eye protects the soft-toed snow drop, with Romit Berger (2022, ISBN 978-9-657-68177-0, Gama Poetry) and two early collections Bottle bank (2008 ISBN 978-1-84923-119-0), and For the chiding dove (2009, ISBN 978-1-84923-485-6) published by YWO/Legend Press with Arts Council support.
Ma Yongbo is a representative of Chinese Avant-garde poetry, and a leading scholar in Anglo-American poetry. He is the first translator to introduce British and American postmodern poetry into Chinese, focusing on translating and teaching Anglo-American poetry and prose including the work of Dickinson, Whitman, Stevens, Pound, Amy Lowell, Williams, Ashbery, Rosanna Warren.
He has published over eighty original works and translations since 1986 including 9 poetry collections. Ma Yongbo’s complete Chinese translation of Moby Dick has sold over 600,000 copies.
The Collected Poems of Ma Yongbo (four volumes, Eastern Publishing Centre, 2024) comprising 1178 poems, celebrate 40 years of writing poetry. He teaches at Nanjing University of Science and Technology.
In August 2026 he received the American poetry award: New Generation Beat Poet Laureate (2026-lifetime) China, from The National Beat Poetry Foundation (NBPF) in the United States.
Night-Shining White is due for publication on 10 October 2026, and will be available via Waterstones.com and Barnesabdnoble.com, and at selected retail outlets in the UK and China. The official book launch will take place at the Cambridge Poetry Festival next week.
Stay tuned for updates!
Ingrid
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