The PTC is launching their new book, The Years in My Hair: 诗选 (1966-2017) by Dan Ying, translated from Chinese into English by Christina Ng with a unique and surprising event bringing poetry and music together. Dan Ying’s poetry focuses on nature, memory and womanhood and is filled with allusions to Chinese literature, from Taoist philosophy to traditional musical instruments, inspiring us to create this opportunity to hear Dan Ying’s poetry read in both Chinese and English alongside traditional Chinese music.
The Years in My Hair: 诗选 (1966-2017) by Dan Ying is the first book published under the PTC’s new Plutonic Press imprint. Edited by Nashwa Nasreldin, it gathers poems from six different collections and six decades of Dan Ying’s career, charting her development as a poet and growth as a person. The poems record her long life and illuminate her shifting perspectives, as she travels from a snowy Thanksgiving spent in a US basement to the flaming Huoyen Mountains in northern China. Her work tackles everything from ancient warlords to doing the laundry, all the while wryly observing the lifelong struggle to maintain the balance between poetry and laundry.
This event at the Cinema Bar at Rich Mix, will feature the original Chinese and a set of English translations commissioned by the PTC. Sadly, due to illness, the poet Dan Ying could not travel to be part of this event. However, the book’s translator, Christina Ng, will be there to unpack Ying’s varied and captivating verse.
The afternoon will start with dual language Chinese and English reading of Dan Ying’s poems by Christina Ng. This will be followed by the traditional Chinese musical group Echo & Earth responding to Dan Ying’s poetry. The centrepiece of this performance will be a reading of Dan Ying’s poem series ‘Remembering Ten Classics’, a set of ten short poems about classical songs, with Echo & Earth responding with short musical improvisations relating to the verse.
This event is supported by the National Arts Council Singapore and co-produced by Rosy Lin.
Dan Ying – Poet bio
Dan Ying is a celebrated Singaporean poet whose graceful, deeply reflective work has earned international acclaim and significant literary honours—most notably Singapore’s Cultural Medallion for Literature in 1996. Other awards include two National Book Development Council of Singapore’s Book Awards for poetry and the 1995 Southeast Asia Write Award. Her literary legacy continues to be recognized as she was spotlighted as Singapore’s Literary Pioneer at Singapore Writers Festival 2024, with a dedicated touring exhibition celebrating her poetic contributions, a live musical tribute, and discussions highlighting her influential work, which spans from the 1960s to the 1990s.
Christina Ng – Translator bio
Christina Ng is a Singaporean writer and translator based in Berlin. Her Chinese-to-English literary translations include Singaporean poet Dan Ying’s selected poetry (1967 to 1995) (forthcoming in Spring 2026 from Poetry Translation Centre), which won the PEN Translates Award 2025, and Singaporean poet/author Liang Wern Fook’s short story collection, The Joy of a Left Hand, which was shortlisted for the Singapore Literature Prize 2024 Translation Category. Her own writing explores identity, cultural and generational traumas. She teaches literary translation classes at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University as well as leads literary translation and creative writing workshops.
