Mao's Mole

About the author

Marc Vincenz is Swiss-British, was born in Hong Kong, and currently divides his time between Zurich, Reykjavik and New York. His work has appeared in many journals, including Washington Square Review, Fourteen Hills, The Potomac, The Canary, Saint Petersburg Review, The Bitter Oleander, and Guernica. Recent collections include: The Propaganda Factory, or Speaking of Trees (2011); Gods of a Ransacked Century (Unlikely Books, 2013) and forthcoming, Beautiful Rush (Unlikely Books, 2014) and a meta-novel, Behind the Wall at the Sugar Works (Spuyten Duyvil, 2014). A new English-German bi-lingual collection, Additional Breathing Exercises is forthcoming from Wolfbach Verlag, Zurich (2014). Marc is Executive Editor of Mad Hatters' Review and MadHat Press and Coeditor-in-Chief at Fulcrum: an annual of poetry and aesthetics.

Reviews

"China throws long shadows. Somewhere between Mao's revelation of the use of the vast Chinese masses, and between Colonel Sanders and Steve Jobs' revelation of the same masses and their use, nothing happened. The masses died, mostly, quickly in battle or slowly by toxins, and the wisdom of monks in the caves stayed the same. The masses and the monks in their caves play an ancient game in Marc Vincenz verses, a complex game of poetry Go, born of the poet's encounter with real people who are at the same time a mass. China's paradoxes breathe in his poems."

Andrei Codrescu, poet, novelist, essayist and screenwriter

"Everything under heaven is in utter chaos; the situation is excellent," says Mao. Marc Vincenz uses the Chairman as a guide in this Dantesque tour of China. A book that registers bewilderment and grit, a book that does not turn away. Probably the most realistic portrait of China I've ever read!"

Terese Svoboda, poet, novelist, memoirist and translator

"Mao's Mole is a must read if you want to know China, its past, present, and future. Marc has managed to enter the most guarded palace through a wormhole, and come out with abundant gifts. Beautiful, powerful, and entertaining all at once."

Wang Ping, poet, novelist, translator and teacher