Li-Young Lee was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese parents. His father had been a personal physician to Mao Zedong while in China, and relocated the family to Indonesia, where he helped found Gamaliel University. In 1959, the Lee family fled the country to escape anti-Chinese sentiment and after a five-year trek, they settled in the United States in 1964. Li-Young Lee is the author of multiple critically acclaimed books of poetry, and this week, we spoke with him about his newest collection of poetry, The Undressing, which investigates the violence and dispossession increasingly prevalent around the world, as well as the horrors he grew up with as a child of refugees.
Aired April 29, 2018