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In China, Yang Lians poetry has been banned, destroyed and derided as spiritual pollution.

The censorship began in earnest in the early 1980s, after Yang wrote the poem Nuorilang, which deploys Tibetan mythology and was seen as a critique of Han Chinese nationalism. It reached its peak in the wake of the Tiananmen Square massacre and another poem, 1989, in which he said the violence and suppression were nothing new and they signified no doubt a perfectly ordinary year.

But in Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy and Scandinavia, the dissident is hailed as a literary superstar, a poet praised by Allen Ginsberg before the Beat poets death for his individualism, and even tipped as a future Nobel laureate.

To his mantelpiece of honours, as of yesterday, Yang can add another: the inaugural Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation, for his book Anniversary Snow. He shares what will be a biennial award in memory of one of Britains most distinguished champions of international poetry with his long-time Scottish translator, Brian Holton.

Yang describes the process of reinventing his work in English as like growing a second tree but from the same root. But this second tree, I have to say, is a very beautiful tree.

Were sort of like the Morecambe and Wise of our language pair, says Holton, who has worked with Yang since 1993. I dont know of any other translator and poet whove stayed together so long.

The Scotsman is delighted, too, to see some adulation for his own craft. Translators always feel underappreciated, you know. As I have written, the translation may be a cover version, but some cover versions are as good as the original. Some are better, even.

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China is the worst capitalism plus the worst socialism: poet Yang Lian on the regime he fled - Telegraph.co.uk