Taiwanese pop siren sings Szymborska

Hebe Tien. Photo: Press materials

Hebe Tien's track "Insignificance" was inspired by Szymborska's poem "Under a Small Star."

Besides adapting the poem to her native tongue, the singer also rises to the challenge of recounting a verse in Polish.

Hebe Tien shot to stardom in 2000, after winning a talent-finding competition held by HIM International Music.

She sings in Mandarin and is one of the biggest stars of the so-called 'Mandopop' scene, which besides Taiwan and China, has a following in Singapore and Malaysia.

Wislawa Szymborska's poems have been translated into over forty languages to date. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. Prior to her death in 2012, she set up a foundation that awards Poland's most generous prize for poets.

The verse that Hebe Tien took on in her latest song presents no simple task to those uninitiated with the Polish language.

Prawdo, nie zwracaj na mnie zbyt bacznej uwagi.
Powago, okaz mi wspaniałomyslnosc.
Scierp, tajemnico bytu, ze nie moge byc wszedzie.

(Truth, please don't pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.
Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.) (nh)

Source: culture.pl

HEBE TIEN - INSIGNIFICANCE