Empty Chairs

"Each poem is a container that bursts with breath like glass . . . The words are delicately drawn, the perception is elegant, yet silk is stronger than steel and this delicate voice brings an immense capacity for a sense of self in an absurd world. She's able to articulate all the things we cannot hold onto. There's an essential seriousness in each line, even grief, but because of her inventiveness, there's a fine understanding of language's play as well."—Washington Independent Review of Books

"Liu's collection resides in a place of isolation, a place brimming with shadows, specters, and half-issued words . . . While her poems are deeply personal, they reveal an ever-present awareness of the perils of relentlessly pursuing art in the midst of an authoritarian government. . . . Deprived of full freedom and with her everyday life economized by the state, Liu [Xia] subtly militates against forgetting with each poem."—Words Without Borders

“That [Liu Xia's] grief and poetry can be both full of love and resentment, strength and vulnerability, fierceness and tenderness, is a testament to her humanity. It is what places her body of work and these translations of that work above all discussions of political context and into the realm of universality.”—Consequence Magazine

“[Empty Chairs is] illuminated by an indomitable interior light that refuses to be extinguished.”—Three Percent

"Liu Xia . . . lends an intimate voice to the experiences of a life stolen by government surveillance, repression, and house arrest . . . The translations . . . balance craft and inventiveness with loyalty to the original . . . Liu kindles hope and companionship, even when all is lost."—Publishers Weekly