Robert Dorsett studied Chinese at the Yale-in-China Program at the Chinese University in Hong Kong. He received an M.D. degree from the State University of New York and completed his training in pediatrics at Cornell. He also has an M.F.A. degree from New York University, where he subsequently taught creative writing.
Robert has translated many individual poems and essays from the Chinese:
With David Pollard, he translated the memoirs of Ertai Gao, In Search of My Homeland: A Memoir of a Chinese Labor Camp (HarperCollins 2009). Epic in scope, reaching from the depth of work ditches in the Gobi Desert to the heights of the Buddhist heavens depicted on the Dunhuang cave ceilings, In Search of My Homeland is Gao’s memoir of a life of political persecution, and of a people subjected to the cruelty and violence of a totalitarian regime, and ultimately of the power of hope.
Stagnant Water & Other Poems, by Wen Yiduo (BrightCity Books, 2014), is Robert’s second book of translations. For many years, Wen’s artistic accomplishments were obscured by the circumstances of his death: Wen was assassinated in 1946 by Nationalists, after giving an impassioned speech denouncing the Guomindang government. His work was banned in Taiwan until 1987, while Mao and the People’s Republic of China regarded Wen as a patriot.
In the works is a translation of selected poems by Ai Qing, an artist, writer, and dissident. The translation is being done in cooperation with Ai Weiwei, the internationally famous artist and son of the poet.
Robert has also published his own poetry in The Literary Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, and elsewhere.
Formerly a senior physician at Kaiser Hospital Oakland, he now writes full time.