by Ling Yü

Translated by Nicholas Y. H. Wong

A meditative exploration of loss, memory, and the eternal bond between mothers and daughters, Daughters unfolds in three poetic movements—charting the quiet depths of grief, the pursuit of selfhood, and the refuge found in art. In the stillness of sorrow and the echo of recollection, the poet drifts through fragments of Z before journeying along the Edo-Kyoto highway, guided by the dreamlike landscapes of Utagawa Hiroshige. After her mother’s passing, she becomes both mother and daughter—forever seeking, forever yearning. A lyrical elegy to love, absence, and the act of remembering.

The Newman Prize for Chinese Literature 2025

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.

—– Cosima Bruno (SOAS, London)

ISBN: 978-1-913891-68-8
Publication date:  20 March 2025
Format: Paperback (Demy octavo) 216mm x 138mm
Pages:  160 pp