Minneapolis-based independent publisher Graywolf Press has bought world rights to a first English-language collection of poetry by Chinese poet and newly anointed Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo.

The poetry collection, entitled June Fourth Elegies, explores the Tiananmen Square massacre on the 4 June 1989. Liu was a leading activist at the Tiananmen Square protests and the book is divided into 20 sections, each written at a similar time of year to the massacre, and each recalling a different aspect of the fateful day, in a series of anniversary memorials.

The book, which has never been published in China, will be translated by poet Jeffrey Yang, who has already translated some of Xiaobo's poems at the request of international writers' organisation PEN International.

Liu was awarded the Nobel peace prize last week "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China", in a ceremony in which he was represented by an empty chair. Frequently imprisoned in China for his dissident activities over the past 20 years, he is currently serving an 11-year jail sentence in Beijing for subversion.

A second book containing Liu's political writings, compiled by his wife Liu Xia, who is herself now under house arrest, will be published by Harvard University Press in 2012.