Li Kuei-hsien

Li Kuei-hsien 李魁賢
Born	(1937-06-19)19 June 1937 Taihoku, Taihoku Prefecture, Japanese Taiwan (present-day Taipei, Taiwan)
Died	15 January 2025(2025-01-15) (aged 87) Taipei, Taiwan
Occupation	Poet translator
Language	Taiwanese, Japanese, Mandarin, English, German
Alma mater	Taipei Institute of Technology
Notable awards	Korea's Distinguished Asian Poet award (1994), the Rong-hou Taiwanese Poet Prize (1997), India's Poets International Prize (2000), Taiwan's Lai Ho Literature Prize and Premier Culture Prize (2001), the Michael Madhusadan Poet Award (2002), the Wu San-lien Prize in Literature (2004) and Poet Medal of the Mongolian Cultural Foundation (2005).

Li Kuei-hsien (Chinese: 李魁賢; pinyin: Lǐ Kuíxián; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lí Khoe-hiân; 19 June 1937 – 15 January 2025) was a Taiwanese author, poet, cultural critic, translator, and inventor, born in Taihoku during the period of Japanese rule. He mainly wrote poetry, but also provided reviews and translations.

Li's family left Taihoku for Tamsui in 1944, due to World War II, and he began attending Tamshui Junior High School in 1950, not returning to Taipei until enrolling at the Taipei Institute of Technology.^[1][2] Li began writing poems in 1953. He is noted for writing extended verse in Taiwanese Hokkien and represents an influential figure in the Taiwanese literature movement. Li's work today appears in multi-volume sets of collected poems published in 2001, 2002, and 2003. His "February 28th Incident Requiem" was set to music in 2008 by composer Fan-Long Ko. Translations of Li's poems have been published in Japan, Korea, Russia, New Zealand, Mongolia, India, the former Yugoslavia, Romania, Greece, Spain, the Netherlands and Canada. Li has also translated poems and edited collections of modern poems from Italy and other European sources.

Li authored Columbarium and Others and Selected Poems of Li Kuei-hsien. He died in Taipei on 15 January 2025, at the age of 87.^[3]