About the Contributors

Aku Wuwu is a well-known poet of the Nuosu branch of the Yi of southwest China. Born in 1964, he began writing as a student at the Southwest Nationalities University in Chengdu. Dedicated to preserving his native language and culture, he has thus far refused to allow his Nuosu poems to be translated into Chinese. His work includes the poetry collections Cux wa yyp mop (Winter river, 1994) and Lat jju (Tiger tracks, 1998) and critical writing on ethnic-minority literature of China.

Alai was born in 1959 in a Tibetan district of Sichuan Province. After graduating from a teachers' college, he taught in a village school for five years. Now living in Chengdu, he is editor-in-chief of Science Fiction World. His publications include a volume of poetry, numerous short stories, and Red Poppies, an award-winning novel published in English in 2002.

Mark Bender is an associate professor of Chinese at Ohio State University. His works include Seventh Sister and the Serpent: A Narrative Poem of the Yi People, Daur Folktales, and Plum and Bamboo: China's Suzhou Chantefable Tradition. He specializes in oral literature of ethnic-minority cultures in China.

Edward Burtynsky is an artist based in Toronto who received one of three inaugural TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Prizes in 2004. The prize honors innovators, in any field, "who have shown that they can, in some way, positively impact life on this planet." For over twenty years, Burtynsky has used photography to explore the complex relationship between nature and human industry.

Ken Chen is a third-year law student.

Chen Zeping is a professor in the Chinese department at Fujian Teachers' University. He has published a number of books and articles on Chinese linguistics.

Colin Cheong was born in Singapore in 1965. He began writing at the age of seven, encouraged by his mother, and had his first novel, The Stolen Child, published in 1989. To date, he has written over twenty books, mostly business histories. He teaches writing and research methodology to high-school seniors.

Karen Gernant has published her translations in four issues of Mānoa. Other translations by her have been published in Conjunctions, turnrow, and Black Warrior Review.

Jjiepa Ayi is a graduate student in Yi nationality folklore and traditional literature at the Southwest Nationalities University in Chengdu. Her hometown is Xichang, located in Liangshan Yi Nationality Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

Yuzun Kang grew up in Germany and Busan, South Korea, before moving to the United States at the age of fourteen. He is an MFA candidate in creative writing at the University of Virginia.

Ronald G. Knapp is a professor emeritus in the SUNY department of geography. He has written or edited more than a dozen books and numerous articles on China's historical and cultural geographies. The most recent include Chinese Dwellings, with photographs by A. Chester Ong (Periplus, 2005); Asia's Old Dwellings: Tradition, Resilience, and Change (Oxford, 2003); and House Home Family: Living & Being Chinese (Hawai'i, 2005).

Catherine Lim has published nine collections of short stories, five novels, and a book of poems. She also contributes articles on contemporary issues to local and international newspapers. She was awarded the Southeast Asia Writer Award in 1999 and an honorary doctorate in literature by Murdoch University, Australia, in 2000. She lives in Singapore.

Denis Mair is a translator and poet and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania. His translation of Feng Youlan's memoirs was published by the University of Hawai'i Press. His poetry collection, Man Cut Wood, was published by Valley Contemporary Poets in Los Angeles.

Gregory Yee Mark taught at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa for twenty-five years. He currently is chair of the department of ethnic studies at California State University in Sacramento. He is also the director of the Asian/Pacific Island Youth Violence Prevention Center, based at the University of Hawai'i John A. Burns School of Medicine. He is a fifth-generation Chinese American and the father of Kellen Nainoa Yee Mark and Alexa...