Ling Yü wins 2025 Newman Prize

NORMAN, OKLA. – An international jury has selected Taiwanese poet Ling Yü 零⾬ (Wang Meiqin 王美琴) as the winner of the 2025 Newman Prize for Chinese Literature. Sponsored by the University of Oklahoma Institute for US-China Issues in the David L. Boren College of International Studies, the Newman Prize is awarded biennially to recognize outstanding achievement in prose or poetry that best captures the human condition, based solely on literary merit. Any living author writing in Chinese is eligible.

Ling Yü will receive $10,000 and an engraved bronze medallion. She will be celebrated at an award symposium and banquet to be held on the OU Norman campus during the last week of March 2025 along with the winners of the International Newman Prizes for English Jueju.

Ling Yü was nominated for the prize by Professor Cosima Bruno (School of Oriental and African Studies, London), who praised her poetry for its “untrammeled, ingenious lyricism” and its ability to weave contemporary themes and personal experiences with the controlled elegance of classical Chinese poetry.

Bruno remarked in her nomination statement:

Ling Yü’s language is economical and concise, yet surprising and reverberating with complex meaning. Her poetry engages thoughtfully with classical and modern, Eastern and Western literary, philosophical, artistic, and esoteric sources, generating outstanding works that require attention but are also intuitively grasped. Through her works, readers encounter a prism of rich, elegantly employed references that span themes of meditation, travel, feminism, capitalism, the environment, mythology and more.

Ling Yü’s extensive body of work includes nine collections of poetry, such as Series on a City (《城的連作》1990), Names Disappearing on the Map (《消失在地圖上的名字》1992), Mudong Hymns (《⽊冬詠歌集》1999), I’m Heading for You (《我正前往你》2010), and her recent collections Skin-Coloured Time (《膚⾊的時光》2018) and Daughters (《女兒》2022). Her poetry spans topics such as cultural heritage, mythological figures, ecological concern, and autobiographical reflection. Her work has been widely recognized, translated into multiple languages, and presented at major international poetry festivals, including the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam and the Hong Kong International Poetry Nights.

Other nominees for the 2025 prize include an extraordinary group of contemporary poets: Zheng Xiaoqiong / 郑⼩琼 (nominated by Zhou Xiaojing, Pacifica University, USA), Yam Gong 飲江 (nominated by Chris Song, University of Toronto, Canada), Ouyang Jianghe 欧阳江河 (nominated by Wu Xiaodong, Peking University, PRC), and Bai Hua 柏樺 (nominated by Luo Hui, Victoria University, New Zealand).

“Once again, this year’s nominees were incredibly competitive as each demonstrate the incredible diversity and depth of contemporary Chinese literature,” said Jonathan Stalling, director of the Newman Prize and interim dean of the David L. Boren College of International Studies. “Ling Yü’s singular voice and masterful blending of classical and contemporary poetic traditions has left an indelible and positive mark on Sinophone poetry and poetics and exemplifies the spirit of the Newman Prize, celebrating the most compelling voices in Chinese literature today.”

About the Voting Process

The winner of the Newman Prize is selected through a transparent and rigorous process. The five jurors participated in successive rounds of positive elimination voting, held via Zoom in October 2024. In this voting method, jurors vote for all but one candidate in each round, gradually narrowing the field until one candidate remains. The director of the Institute for US-China Issues carefully recorded each round to ensure fairness and transparency.

About the Newman Prize for Chinese Literature

The Newman Prize honors Harold J. and Ruth Newman, whose generous endowment of a chair at the University of Oklahoma enabled the creation of the OU Institute for US-China Issues in 2006. The Newman Prize Programs embody Harold Newman’s belief that literature and poetry bridge people across cultures and languages because they speak directly to our shared humanity.

OU is also home to the Newman Prize for English Jueju, the Chinese Literature Translation Archive and Special Collections, the journals Chinese Literature and Thought Today and World Literature Today, as well as the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.