Makers of Modern China: An Online event on Zheng Xiaoqiong – May 4 2026

Join Eleanor Goodman and Kaiser Kuo for a discussion of Zheng Xiaoqiong, a poet and writer who depicts the world of Chinese migrant workers. 

Zheng Xiaoqiong burst onto the Chinese literary scene in the late aughts, after years toiling in the factories of Guangdong. Last June, NYRB Classics published In The Roar of the Machine, Eleanor Goodman’s translations of a wide-ranging selection of poetry from across Zheng’s career. And last December, Equator, a new magazine of politics and culture, published “The Makers of Modern China,” a selection of chapters from Woman Worker, Zheng’s oral history of migrant workers in Guangdong, with a contextualizing introduction by Kaiser Kuo.

This is a free virtual event co-hosted by Equator and NYRB Poets. To register click here