Julia Lovell's new translation of <i>Monkey King: Journey to the West</i> is the best English edition of the classic Chinese fantasy novel I have ever read. If you wish to understand why <i>Monkey King</i> has been a fixture in Chinese popular culture for no fewer than five centuries, then look no further
Los Angeles Review of Books
One of the world's greatest fantasy novels, and a timeless classic of Chinese literatureOne of China's Four Great Classical Novels, Monkey King was written anonymously during the Ming dynasty and is most commonly attributed to Wu Cheng'en, the son of a silk-shop clerk from east China. It recounts a Tang-dynasty monk's quest for Buddhist scriptures, accompanied by an omni-talented kung-fu Monkey King called Sun Wukong; a rice-loving divine pig; and a depressive man-eating river-sand monster.Comparable to The Canterbury Tales or Don Quixote, the tale is at once a comic adventure story, a humorous satire of Chinese bureaucracy, a spring of spiritual insight and an extended allegory in which the group of pilgrims journeys towards enlightenment.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780143138938
Publisert
2025-03-27
Utgiver
Vendor
Penguin Classics
Vekt
500 gr
Høyde
198 mm
Bredde
129 mm
Dybde
35 mm
Aldersnivå
01, G, 01
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
384
Forfatter
Oversetter
Biographical note
Wu Cheng’en (Author)Very little is known about Wu Cheng'en (c. 1505-80), although he is believed to have held the post of District Magistrate for a time. He had a reputation as a good poet, but only a few rather commonplace verses of his survive in an anthology of Ming poetry and in a local gazetteer.
Julia Lovell (Translator)
Julia Lovell is the translator of The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun, and is the author of Maoism, for which she won the 2019 Cundhill History Prize, and The Opium War, for which she won the Jan Michalski Prize. She is Professor of Modern China at Birkbeck College, University of London, and writes about China for The Guardian, Financial Times, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. She lives in Cambridge.