"If the work of many artists evidences a mellowing out in later life, as Prof Stambler approaches the end of middle age, he has become decidedly more angry....The evolution of Western civilisation, indeed, and not just American civilisation, seems to be at the bottom of just about everything he does. Moreover, his career in Hong Kong to date may have a lot to say about where Asian civilisation is heading....Proponents of Asian values might well think Hong Kong got its money's worth out of Prof Stambler....But they would be less welcoming of the principles for which he has served as a Trojan horse. Yet this is part and parcel of the professor's design."

Steven Ribet
Hong Kong Standard

Peter Stambler was born in Washington DC in 1944, and grew up in New Jersey. He was educated at Yale, Carnegie-Mellon drama school, and Syracuse. He has taught at the North Carolina School of the Arts and the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. He is currently the Dean of Liberal Arts at the University of Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

He has published six volumes of poems, edited two others, and has also written plays for off-off Broadway and for radio.

Stambler's poetry tends toward the condition of drama or fiction: his books present sequences of inter-related poems, like scenes in a play, with characters who appear and reappear as the drama develops. In addition, these dramatic sequences are generally rooted in a historical moment – his first three books are set in the nineteenth century and deal with actual events and people.

Besides teaching and writing, Stambler has performed widely and has been especially active as a poet in the schools. He is also a member of American P.E.N. and has served as president of Hong Kong (English-speaking) P.E.N.

Peter Stambler's work is not included in Hong Kong University Press's forthcoming anthology of Hong Kong literature. According to the anthology's editor Xu Xi, the book "didn't quite fit edit focus." Before Peter Stambler left Hong Kong, Professor Shirley Lim, newly appointed head of the English Department of the University of Hong Kong, wrote a scathing review of Coming Ashore Far from Home that appeared in the South China Morning Post under the title "Coming Ashore for a Wander." In that review Professor Lim questioned the appropriateness of Asia 2000 publishing the book and of the Hong Kong Arts Development Council supporting it. Asia 2000's request for an opportunity to rebut Professor Lim's remarks was denied. See The Peter Stambler Issue for both Professor Lim's review and Asia 2000's unpublished response.

<  >