Profile
Mu Cao is a self-taught poet and fiction writer from (the People’s Republic of) China. Described as a “folk poet”, Mu Cao is a precarious worker and one of the few openly gay Chinese poets, often facing censorship and relying on unofficial channels for publishing his work. His poetry is bold, dark and expressive, and his use of language is at once mischievous and serious, provocative and introspective, hilarious and heartbreaking. Mu Cao blends his own life experience with a powerful imagination to document queer life on the underside, telling the stories of rural and working-class gay men living at the margins of society where neoliberal capitalism ruthlessly exploits human labour and demarcates middle-class consumers from a large, underprivileged social group.
Mu Cao’s books to date include several major poetry collections, two novels, and a collection of short fiction. His work has been translated into English, French, Slovenian, Italian, Japanese, and Dutch, including a full English translation of his first novel, “In the Face of Death We Are Equal”.
