October Dedications: An Interview with Lucas Klein on the Poetry of Mang Ke

Back in action after a brief hiatus, Lee and Rob interview translator and professor Lucas Klein, whose most recent work, October Dedications, is a book of translations of the poet Mang Ke. Prof. Klein is best-known for his work with Xi Chuan, but gives a nice guided tour of historical trends in poetry translation, the differences between classical and modern poetry, and why exactly it’s nice to know the person you’re translating. If the sound quality gets a little iffy in places, be gracious: conducting Skype interviews between the U.S. and Hong Kong isn’t always seamless.