An academic symposium took place at the Irish Consulate in Shanghai on June 13 in commemoration of the 160th anniversary of the birthday of William Butler Yeats (1865-1939).

A celebrated Irish poet, playwright and essayist, Yeats received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 for his "always inspired poetry, which in a highly artistic form gives expression to the spirit of a whole nation".

The symposium on Irish literature was jointly hosted by the Irish Consulate in Shanghai and the Shanghai Public Relations Association. The event was launched last year with the first edition featuring the Irish novel Ulysses by James Joyce.