Post-1989
Yang began to travel overseas after 1986, including visits to Australia and New Zealand. Yang Lian was in Auckland, New Zealand at the time of the Tiananmen incident, and was involved with protests against the actions of the Chinese government. His work was blacklisted in China shortly after June 4, 1989, and two books of his poetry awaiting publication there were pulped. A short time later, Yang's Chinese citizenship was revoked. He requested a new passport so that he could travel abroad, but Chinese authorities refused to issue one for him, and he was granted refugee status in New Zealand.
Since that time, Yang Lian has held writers' fellowships in Australia and Germany, and has travelled broadly. Although he has retained New Zealand citizenship, he has lived in London since 1993.
Along with fellow Misty Poet, Bei Dao, he has reportedly been nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature. He received the Flaiano International Prize for Poetry in 1999.
Since 2005 he is Professor at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland and Artistic Director of the Unique Mother Tongue series of international poetry-arts events held periodically in London.
He won International Nonino Prize in 2012.
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